DAKAR/OUAGADOUGOU,  – Unexpectedly sharp price rises in April for local cereals like millet, rice and maize in parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad mean many vulnerable people in the drought-hit Sahel could find it even harder to get enough to eat.

The high prices of basic foods are the most alarming feature of the current Sahel crisis, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Prices are expected to keep rising until the end of August – during the lean season – but the size of recent hikes has surprised food price analysts and humanitarian aid personnel.

In Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, local millet is 85 percent above the five-year average, and in Mali’s capital, Bamako, it is more than double, said Jean-Martin Bauer, the Food Security Monitoring Systems leader at the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

In Ouagadougou a 100kg bag of millet cost 26,000 cfa (US$49) in May 2012, compared to 15,000 cfa ($28) in May 2011, while in Bamako a 100kg bag of millet cost 28,500 cfa ($53) this year but only 14,000 cfa ($26) a year ago, according to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) monthly reports.

This volatility – when prices move outside of historical minimum or maximum increases, as they did in April – is as important to watch as steadily rising levels, said Gary Eilerts, Programme Manager at FEWS NET. Aid agencies say the very poor, who own no land or animals of their own and must buy most of their food, are worst affected.

Why are local grains so expensive?

The price of key foods is still very high across the globe. In February 2011 they reached a historic peak, partly linked to the rise in bio-fuel costs, the impact of speculation, and high oil prices, dropping by six percent in March 2012.

Analysts have questioned why these global price trends have also touched millet and sorghum – grains that are consumed in the Sahel but not globally.

While each Sahelian country has its own specific price dynamic – markets are disrupted in Mali partly because of conflict and displacement for instance – many of the answers can be found in Nigeria, which supplies half of West Africa’s cereal needs, Bauer noted.

Economic growth in Nigeria has boosted domestic grain demand for human consumption, as animal feed, to produce beer, and for other uses, yet even steeply rising production – Mali and Niger produced 5 million mt of these grains plus other cereals in 2010 – cannot keep up with demand.

Ghana, too, has mounting consumption rates of these and other grains in its booming, oil-fuelled economy; and it has also been pushing agro-industrial development, including large poultry farms, which require grain as feed.

The Niger-Nigeria price differential for grains “is still what it should be”, Bauer said. One kg of millet costs 222 cfa (45 US cents) in Maradi, a trading hub in southern Niger, and 200 cfa (40 US cents) across the border in Nigeria, which means exports are flowing normally. But Nigeria’s capacity to respond to demands in the Sahel has weakened.

A 50 percent fuel price rise in January 2012 has increased food transport costs. Boko Haram - a jihadist group using violent means to establish Sharia law in northern Nigeria – caused the government to close the eastern border, bringing slowdowns in trade in western Chad and Niger. However, Chad, northern Cameroon and Niger are all still tapping into the same supply pool.

“Demand is getting stronger by the day, while supplies across the Sahel are approaching their seasonal low,” said Bauer.

Narrowing gap

The dynamic is unusual. The price of imported grains is traditionally much higher than local grains, but this gap is “seriously narrowing”, said Bauer. For instance, imported rice usually costs roughly twice as much as local millet – as it did in May 2011 – but now a 50kg bag of millet in Bamako sells for 28,500 cfa ($54), while a bag of imported rice costs 35,000 cfa ($66), and 50kg of locally grown rice is priced at 42,500 ($81).

FEWS NET’s Eilerts said other reasons for the sharp price rise in April may be because traders think institutions (governments, aid agencies) are still interested in buying large quantities of food, but “it might start raining, which means prices will drop,” he said.

Buy cautiously

FEWS NET warns that in this context, “local and regional procurement [by aid agencies] should proceed cautiously”. Governments are by far the biggest grain buyers in West Africa, but WFP, a significant purchaser, is careful to buy only off-market grains from long-term national stocks in Nigeria so as to limit the risks to local markets.

Rather than only buying grain to distribute, WFP is also boosting its cash voucher distributions in Niger, Mali, Senegal, northern Cameroon and Burkina Faso. The amounts given will not be able to keep up with rising prices, but a small buffer is built in to absorb some of the anticipated monthly price increases during the lean season, said Margie Rehm, WFP’s cash-for-change programme officer. WFP has calculated that a household in Niger would receive vouchers worth 32,500 cfa ($62) per month, and one in Mali would get 25,000-36,000 cfa ($47-68), depending on where it is located.

Market interventions

Many agencies, including the international NGO, Oxfam, say that given the right market conditions, cash vouchers can be an important social protection mechanism for poor households. Several other interviewees said less targeted measures – such as subsidies or reduced taxes on cereals, which the government is taking to try to control prices – are expensive and inefficient because the rich also benefit.

Mali has lowered taxes on imported rice. Niger, Chad and Mauritania have made subsidized grains available. The new government in Senegal is attempting to bring down cereal prices through consultations with importers, distributors and consumer groups. Burkina Faso has tried to fund selected traders to sell staple grains at reduced prices, but they did not respect the contract and the government now aims to open shops in 182 communes, selling rice at $14 per 25kg bag.

Such temporary measures to control costs “do have a role”, but historically they have been “very difficult to implement – subsidies generally don’t work well in West Africa – they can end up making problems worse”, said one food price specialist.

The Mali and Burkina Faso governments also banned grain exports, but blocking borders usually doesn’t work, said Eilerts. “People just try harder and pay more to get around them, and farmers, seeing a blocked market, may be disincentivized to produce, pushing down production,” which can have the opposite effect, he told IRIN.

Given chronic food deficiencies and malnutrition in the Sahel, governments need to set up safety nets that work in the long term, and can also be ratcheted up in an emergency, several interviewees told IRIN. “If measures are already in place, when the drought comes, governments should be able to shift gears,” said Bauer.

Aid efforts across the Sahel are currently keeping millions of people alive, but the aid “remains insufficient to fully mitigate food insecurity in northern Mali, parts of Burkina Faso, and western Niger”, FEWS NET said in its May briefing.

“We can do more to avoid catastrophe,” the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, said at a press conference on 24 May in the Senegalese capital, Dakar. “We need good leadership, strong coordination; each country needs a comprehensive response plan and funding from the humanitarian community.”

Some $715 million of the $1 billion required for food and nutrition aid across the Sahel has been committed, according to the 18 May snapshot from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which estimates that non-food sectors like health, clean water, education and protection bring the needs to at least $1.5 billion.

Agriculture, livestock and non-food sectors are severely underfunded. In the emergency appeal for Chad, funding for education is at only 6 percent of the requested amount, and for water and sanitation just 8 percent, while in Niger’s appeal, education is 0 percent funded, with water and sanitation at 18 percent, according to OCHA.

“An integrated response is needed,” Amos told IRIN. ”Healthcare is particularly important, clean water and sanitation are critical, and we need to go beyond immediate relief efforts to support people’s livelihoods in the long term.”

aj/bo/he
source www.irinnews.org

ISIOLO,  – Thousands of infants born in remote northern parts of Kenya in the past six weeks risk contracting tuberculosis (TB) due to a vaccine shortage, with medics warning that the effects could be severe in areas where there is already little access to maternity and vaccination services.

In the north-central Isiolo region, for example, stocks of the TB Bacillus Camille Guérin (BCG) vaccine ran out at the main Isiolo District Hospital in early April, leaving hundreds of babies unimmunized. The hospital also serves residents from the northern districts of Garissa, Marsabit, Samburu and Wajir. 

A nurse working at the hospital said so far three deaths of infants under one month old had been reported.

“I know and can only confirm the deaths of three children – one from Isiolo and two others from [neighbouring] Meru [County]. The latter two, who were HIV positive, died at our ward while being treated for tuberculosis and the other had serious respiratory complications. These deaths could have been prevented if they had been immunized,” said the nurse. IRIN was unable to confirm the deaths from other sources.

Parents of newborn babies in Isiolo are being urged to travel to towns such as Nanyuki and Meru, further south, for the vaccine. 

“I hired a taxi to Meru, it’s very expensive. I was concerned [by the] many visitors, some of whom might be having TB [who] were visiting to see the baby. They were many because he is a boy,” said Aadan Malicha, whose son was born two weeks ago.

The birth of boy children is marked by celebrations in some northern Kenyan communities.

The Ministry of Health confirmed the BCG vaccine shortage, saying this was due to manufacturing delays but fresh stocks were expected.

TB, a bacterial disease which most commonly affects the lungs and is transmitted from person to person via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the active respiratory disease, remains one of the world’s top infectious killers and the UN World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that new-born babies are immunized against it within two weeks of birth.

Poor maternity services

In Isiolo, only 23 percent of women access maternity services, according to the Ministry of Medical Services. Women avoid public maternity health services there partly due to ignorance, traditional beliefs and the absence of female doctors, and they miss out on vaccination for their children in the process.

“We all know that immunization against all diseases is very poor [here]. The few parents who have understood the importance of these vaccines are now very disappointed. This adds to the high number of children who miss immunizations. It will lead to more deaths, more health complications,” Jirma Duba, an official with the Marsabit Community Health Support Initiative, told IRIN.

Duba urged the government to declare the vaccine shortage a disaster, to allow for urgent intervention by aid agencies.

According to the North-eastern Provincial Director of Medical Services, Mohamed Abdikadir Sheikh, contingency plans are in place to ensure that all children under four are protected against TB.

“We have scaled up vaccination awareness campaigns targeting families displaced by drought [and] insecurity in areas close to the border. Our mobile teams are more active in the field now than before,” said Sheikh.

“All our health workers serving different facilities and mobile units are observing a new set of vaccination rules. They only conduct the exercise one day in a week. This is to make sure that the 20 units in one vial [of the BCG vaccine] are utilized well. The moment you open it and fail to use it on 20 children then it’s wasted.” 

Handwritten note

Meanwhile, at health facilities in Isiolo, mothers are continuing to be discharged after delivery without having their children vaccinated against TB. A handwritten note on the children’s antenatal cards indicates that the children are expected back for vaccination but a date is not given, meaning that mothers have to keep visiting the health facilities daily until successful.

“I delivered twins two weeks ago. It was not my first delivery. I know from previous experience that I was only allowed to leave the maternity ward after all my three children got the [BCG] injection on the arm and swallowed a liquid,” said a mother.

In interviews with some parents, IRIN noted that most were not aware of the risk of missing the vaccine, while for the rest the long and expensive journey to neighbouring districts in search of the vaccine is a problem.

According to WHO, about half a million children under 14 contracted TB in 2010, with 58,000-71 000 of them dying; no country has ever eliminated TB.

Kenya is one of 22 countries which collectively account for about 80 percent of the world’s TB cases. 

na/aw/cb
source www.irinnews.org

ADDIS ABABA,  – Aid agencies are calling for more food assistance for areas in southern and northeastern Ethiopia where erratic rains have adversely affected the mid-February to May `Belg’ crop.

“We have a very significant shortage of food in much of [the] `Belg’ season dependent areas of the country particularly in SNNPR, [Southern Nations, Nationalities and People's Region]” Mike McDonagh, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Ethiopia, told IRIN.

Other affected areas include parts of the northeast in the Amhara, Oromia and Tigray regions.

The `Belg’ harvest, which accounts for up to 40 percent of annual food production in some areas, is expected to reduce in 2012 due to the late onset and below-average performance of the mid-February to May rains, which were 2-8 weeks late.

“The situation is of concern and is being monitored closely,” said Judith Schuler, spokesperson of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Ethiopia, adding that the number of food-insecure people could increase.

At present, an estimated 3.2 million people are food insecure in Ethiopia, down from a peak of 4.5 million during the 2011 Horn of Africa drought. Revised figures are expected in mid-July.

WFP requires US$183 million by the end of 2012, to support 2.5 million of the 3.2 million people in need of emergency food assistance.

The situation in SNNPR, which borders Kenya and South Sudan, is of particular concern.

The `Belg’ crop harvest there accounts for 35-40 percent of production, with root crops, mainly sweet potatoes, contributing 50 percent of the harvest in some districts. But the extended dry period had resulted in an almost total failure of the crop – and others such as haricot beans, potatoes and maize, which were expected to fill the food gap between March and June – according to the government’s latest (May) Early Warning and Response analysis.

Aid agencies say a lack of sufficient recovery time after the 2011 drought could aggravate the situation for vulnerable households whose assets and other coping mechanisms were depleted.

Malnutrition rising

Already, the number of malnourished people is rising, said OCHA’s McDonagh.

According to OCHA, close to 90,000 children, pregnant women and nursing mothers in SNNPR alone are moderately malnourished at present, and the number is increasing.

“March was worse than February, April was worse than March and we expect May to be worse than April,” said McDonagh. “So it gets worse for a period and then maybe around July and August… it could reduce again.”

“We need general rations, what we call relief food. We need more supplementary food. We need therapeutic foods and we need also inputs such as seeds.” 

The number of severely malnourished children in therapeutic feeding programmes is increasing, with earlier and greater increases than in 2011, according to the Agriculture Ministry’s Emergency Nutrition Coordination Unit.

For example, from January to February, admissions to the programmes increased by 15.3 percent and went up a further 27 percent from February to March. The March to April figures are not available.

According to Mitiku Kassa, Ethiopia’s minister of agriculture, the agriculture and health ministries are monitoring the food insecurity situation.

“Irregularity in rainfall seasons resulting [in] problems of such [a] kind is not a new thing to us,” Mitiku said. “We faced it last year and a year before that and we are managing it so far… The country has enough resources and mechanisms in place to deal with it this time, though.”

bt/aw/cb
source www.irinnews.org

“I am pleased to note that the parties have shown a willingness to negotiate at this week’s talks in Baghdad. Although the talks have been challenging and intense, the negotiating teams are making an important diplomatic contribution,” said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

Following preliminary talks in Istanbul on 14 April, the parties met again in Baghdad  on 23–24 May. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton chaired the talks on behalf of France, China, Russia, the UK, the US and Germany.The talks focused primarily on the degree of enrichment of uranium in Iran’s nuclear programme. The next round of talks is expected to be held in Moscow on 18–19 June. Parallel to the EU-led process, the IAEA is continuing talks with Iran on greater transparency with regard to the possible military dimension of its nuclear programme.

“Norway supports the international effort to find a peaceful political solution to the conflict over Iran’s nuclear programme. I hope that further talks will foster confidence and lead to concrete results that reduce the uncertainty surrounding the aim of the nuclear programme,” said Mr Støre.

End

source mfa.norway