Niger: Behind the Headlines

By Simon Robinson

The crisis in Niger, 600 miles west of Sudan, has captured the attention of media and aid groups, which warn of a possible famine. But several other African nations face conditions that are just as dire. A guide to the facts behind the images:

How bad is Niger's food shortage?

The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) says 2.5 million people in Niger (pop. 11.7 million) need urgent food aid at least until the next crops can be harvested, in two or three months. But even though the U.S. thought the problem severe enough to airlift tons of high-nutrient food to feed more than 34,000 starving children, experts have yet to upgrade Niger's situation from a food crisis to a famine. The number of people dying there is still small compared with the tolls during the disasters in Ethiopia in 1984-85 and Sudan in the mid-1990s, which claimed some 1 million and 100,000 lives, respectively.

What's causing the crisis?

Unlike many of Africa's worst famines, Niger's predicament has not been caused by war or dictatorship. The poor, landlocked nation, whose population has doubled over the past quarter-century, is primarily a victim of its own geography. Situated in the Sahel, a dry, scrubby area along the southern edge of the Sahara that is vulnerable to drought, Niger endured a lack of seasonal rains last year followed by a devastating plague of locusts that destroyed most of the crops in the region. Add the food shortages in neighboring Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania, and the WFP says more than 4 million people in the Sahel need help.

Didn't experts see this coming?

The government of Niger and the WFP warned of impending disaster late last year, but serious quantities of Western aid started flowing only over the past couple of weeks, in response to media reports on the country's starving children. Niger's President, Mamadou Tandja, has been unwilling to acknowledge the full scope of the crisis, saying that "the people of Niger look well fed, as you can see." Some aid experts blame International Monetary Fund prescriptions, like the suggestion that Niger scrap its emergency food stockpile.

How can the world help?

The WFP says food aid is now flowing into Niger but warns that donors still need to fund outstanding aid requests for neighboring countries. In the long term, though, the region needs to modernize its farming practices if it is to avoid chronic food shortages. That is likely to happen only if West Africans can turn agriculture into a successful commercial industry. But farmers there will never be able to compete against heavily subsidized exporters in First World countries. It may seem like a leap to link images of starving children to world trade, but one of the most effective things concerned citizens in the West can do is lobby their governments to drop agriculture subsidies. It's not going to cure all of Africa's problems, but it would be a big step in the right direction. --By Simon Robinson