World Bank provides $12.5m to fight locusts

The World Bank has offered US$12.5 million of fast disbursing funds to help fight the locust invasion of West Africa and has accused both governments in the region and donors of being slow to realise the full scale of the crisis. The United States has meanwhile officially classified the locust invasion of northern and central Senegal as a "disaster," opening the way for Washington to provide further aid to the country. And over the weekend, the United Nations warned that severe damage to crops and pasture in several countries could lead to "localised famine situations" and a requirement for food aid. Reuters quoted James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, as telling journalists in Washington on Friday: "I personally think we should have been more aggressive on locusts and the world should have been, but I think African leaders should have too." Speaking hours after the World Bank announced an emergency aid package for seven West African countries affected by locusts, Wolfensohn said there was enough money currently available to deal with the problem. The essential thing now, he stressed, was to deliver effective help quickly. The locust invasion is the worst to hit West Africa for 15 years. Agricultural experts from the region estimated earlier this month that the insects could destroy up to 25 percent of this year's grain harvest across the Sahel. The World Bank said in a statement that its new Africa Emergency Locust Project would offer soft loans to Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, the seven countries where harvests are most at risk. The bank said it would also provide longer term help to raise agricultural productivity in West Africa, improve food security and put in place a new early warning system. The US embassy in Senegal said on Friday that ambassador Richard Roth had officially classified this year's locust invasion of the country as a "disaster." This would allow the State Department to mobilise additional resources to fight the insects, it added, noting that Roger Winter, a senior USAID official, was currently on a 10-day tour of West Africa to assess the locust situation. The United States has so far given US$3.6 million to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to boost locust control efforts in West Africa. The FAO estimated earlier this month that it would cost US$100 million to bring the locust situation under control. Limited treatment The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted in its latest report on the locust situation, issued over the weekend that to date less than 16 percent of the estimated 3.5 million hectares infested with locusts in West Africa, had been treated with insecticide. It cited Senegal as having done the most effective job so far, despite severe crop losses in isolated pockets. The authorities had managed to spray nearly two thirds of the 307,000 hectares of land thought to be infected with locusts, OCHA said. However, locust swarms move easily from country to country and Keith Cressman, a locust control officer with FAO in Rome, pointed out last week that Senegal was in grave danger of being invaded by new swarms of insects bred in neighbouring Mauritania and Mali where control measures have been much less successful. OCHA said arid Mauritania had managed to treat less than nine percent of its land area invaded by locusts and stood to lose up to 40 percent of its crops and pasture to the insects. Mali, which has only managed to treat 20 percent of its locust-infested land was officially forecasting that it would lose about 440,000 tonnes of its grain harvest, OCHA said. However UN officials told IRIN last week that the Agriculture Ministry in Bamako was privately anticipating much heavier crop damage of around one million tonnes - about a third of this year's expected harvest. Senegal's main crop-growing areas in the south and centre of the country have so far escaped locust damage. But Cressman at the FAO warned that could change in the coming weeks if swarms blown west from Mauritania and Mali to the Atlantic coast were then blown southwards by the prevailing winds, just as the harvest gets under way. OCHA said: "Severe damage to both agricultural and pastoral land has been registered in some countries and could, if the situation deteriorates further, result in localise famine situations. As a consequence, food aid could be needed for the affected populations, especial agricultural farmers and pastoral nomads." OCHA is organising a meeting of donor countries to West Africa in Dakar on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the humanitarian situation in the region in general and the possible consequences of the locust crisis in particular.