The U.N.’s Jan Egeland Is Livid About Aid Bias

He said that both French and Portuguese-speaking countries ”are systematically lower on our funding tables than many of the English-speaking countries.”

”We urgently appealed for help to Niger (a French-speaking country). But we still have zero commitments,” he added.

Of the 12 million people in Niger, about 3.6 million are caught in what the United Nations has termed an ”acute food security* crisis.”

What little there was of food last year was consumed by an invasion of locusts and that was followed by one of the most severe droughts, resulting in no food production in the country.

Still, the international donor community has been painfully slow in responding to the ongoing crisis in Niger, Egeland said.

But African activists and humanitarian organisations said they are not surprised over the lack of donor commitment to those of the world’s poorer nations that happen to lie in Africa — whether based on language or race.

”The larger problem is that the global North looks at Africa as a basket case which will have no resolution,” Bill Fletcher, president of the Washington-based TransAfrica Forum, told IPS. …

______________________________

PHOTO CAPTION: A swarm of locusts has descended on a town in southeastern Niger, sparking fears that the West African nation, where millions of people face food shortages, could endure another invasion of the crop-munching insects. State radio said on May 8 2005 the locusts were eating plants and leaves in Diffa, near the border with Nigeria. The insects also caused power cuts by weighing down electricity cables.In this file photo a swarm of pink locusts flies on a beach near Corralejo, on the Spanish Canary Island of Fuerteventura, November 29, 2004. (Reuters/Yahoo)

______________________________

* Environmental Times explains: The term “food security” has a different meaning according to where you are. In a rich country it means concern about the quality of the food on your plate. In a poor country it means uncertainty about whether there will be anything to eat at all. In Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries, people are far more concerned about the availability of food than its quality. In some areas, particularly in August and September when one crop runs out and the next is not ready to harvest, people eat very little – some days nothing at all. When they run out of proper food, they eat roots. Every year many die of hunger in Niger.”

Around 3.6 million people in the landlocked nation are critically short of food, the United Nations said last week, appealing for $16.2 million in emergency funding for what it called “a silent crisis.”

The needy include 800,000 children under age 5, 150,000 of whom have severe malnutrition, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

Niger, with a population of about 12 million and an average life expectancy of 46 years, ranks as one of the world’s least developed, lowest income countries.

Most families depend on subsistence farming, growing only enough food to survive until the next harvest. Even in the best years, 40 percent of children are malnourished, the U.N. office said. One in four children dies before the age of 5.