Government demands closer consultation from aid agencies

Talks this week among Niger and aid organisations on the response to the country’s food crisis are taking place amid demands by the government that the humanitarian community respect its sovereignty. Niger’s government has slammed members of the aid community for what it says is a failure to consult it on food aid policies and funding in the massive effort to relieve this year’s widespread food shortages, which the UN estimated affected one in four of Niger’s 12 million people. “What is most unacceptable is this unfortunate tendency to flout the government’s role by certain donors - fortunately not all - who think they can place more trust in international aid groups and NGOs than in the government to save Nigerien lives,” Prime Minister Amadou Hama said on Wednesday at the talks in the capital, Niamey. “In our eyes this is a denial of the credibility of our democracy and even of our country’s sovereignty,” he said. Niger has also taken issue with statistics used by the UN’s World Food Programme, WFP. Last week WFP appealed to donors, saying it still needs US$20 million to continue assisting Nigeriens needing food aid. The UN agency said more than three million people in Niger were likely to face food shortages in coming months. “A break in food supplies looms as early as December if donations are not forthcoming,” a WFP statement said. WFP said with the knock-on effects of catastrophic food shortages in early 2005 – triggered largely by drought and locust invasions the year before – about 1.2 million people have enough food stocks for just three months. Another two million people, it estimated, have enough reserves for at most five months. Niger’s government disagrees, estimating that in all about 1.8 million people could face food shortages over the coming months. “We cannot accept talk about a hunger crisis of the degree we saw here last year,” Amadou Dadio, the Prime Minister’s press officer told IRIN. “There was a very good harvest this year, and even a surplus in cereal production.” “We think WFP must show us why they think 3 million people will need food aid,” he said. WFP, the world’s largest humanitarian organisation, is the lead agency in food crises worldwide. In a telephone interview with IRIN, government spokesperson Mohamed Ben Omar said, “Aid organisations must recognise that they are working within a sovereign nation with a democratically-elected government.” WFP West Africa spokesperson Marcus Prior told IRIN, “In everything WFP does in Niger, we seek to do so in partnership with the government. “That is how we have worked in the country and we will continue to work together.”