Donor attention faltering but hunger continues - WFP

The World Food Programme’s director in the Mauritanian capital has warned that a sixth of the country’s population are vulnerable to fluctuating food supplies and said international donor aid remains critical for Mauritanians. “This is a country that faced consecutive years of natural disaster,” WFP's Sory Ibrahim Ouane told IRIN in the Mauritanian capital Mouakchott on Tuesday. “People have started recovering from those natural disasters, but they have not reached a point at which they do not need our assistance.” Droughts in 2003 and 2004 hit Mauritania hard and were followed last year by a locust invasion which stripped fields bare throughout West Africa. Two thirds of Mauritanians rely on farming for their livelihoods, although just 40 percent of the country’s food is grown domestically, according to the UN. According to Ouane, WFP surveying in December last year found 500,000 people - one sixth of Mauritania’s population - are still not sure where their next meal will come from because their food reserves have run out. Ouane said in some areas of central and southern Mauritania, 12 percent of children are suffering from acute malnutrition, the most severe category of hunger, which is above the 10 percent emergency threshold set by the UN’s World Health Organisation. But dealing with Mauritania’s food security problem is not as simple as just handing out food, according to Ouane. “Malnutrition in this country is not correlated directly with food security. There are many other reasons, including access to potable water and health facilities. It is an inter-sectoral problem,” he explained. Echoing the sentiments of other UN agency and NGO heads IRIN met in Nouakchott, Ouane was overwhelmingly positive about the contribution the transitional government of Colonel Ely Ould Mohammed Vall has made to development in the country since toppling President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya last year. Taya was in power for more than 20 years. “During the transition period, since the coup in August last year, we noticed a new dynamic in the government, and in the implementation of our activities, which have been characterised by good governance and transparency in management of food aid in the country,” Ouane said. Asked if this means that Mauritania is ready to step up to take care of its own, Ouane warned that donors should not think the food situation in Mauritania no longer needs their attention and assistance. “We are trying to attract the attention of the international community to the situation. We do not want donors to say that [the nutritional situation] has improved in the country and there is no need for assistance,” he said. Ouane explained that resource constraints already dictate that WFP focus its attention on rural areas, even though he acknowledged that Mauritania is facing some of the worst urban poverty in the region because of an exodus to towns and cities from the countryside. "This is a policy which is resource driven, as we do not have enough resources, and there are choices to be made. In making these choices we think it is more important that we concentrate on children’s education and their nutritional status and rural areas. Poverty is still more concentrated in rural areas,” he said. But WFP’s rural projects are also under threat. The agency is short of US $4 million for its community feeding projects, which is enough money to buy 7.5 million metric tonnes of food. This would be distributed mostly in the central and southern zones of the vast desert country, Ouane said. If the funds do not turn up by the end of July, 350,000 people will find the WFP-provided food stocks at the cereal banks depleted. They rely on the stocks to avoid exploitative market prices. A WFP media briefing warned that in this case, Mauritanians are likely to compensate by selling important assets, migrating to the cities, and in some cases, relying on non-sustainable survival strategies such as borrowing at exorbitant interest rates and selling their breeding stock. “If we do not secure additional resources we will have choices to make, and we will certainly experience ration cuts at the village level,” Ouane warned. “We are in a silent emergency situation in the country.” nr/cs