Niger: Feeding the hungry

Chris Jansing MSNBC Correspondent • Profile

Help is finally going to reach the struggling African nation of Niger, but the country also faces an uphill battle to keep millions from dying of starvation.

According to the United Nations, 81 million dollars worth of aid is required to fully help it's population.

Nicholas De Torrente, the Executive Director of Doctors without Borders, spoke to MSNBC-TV's Chris Jansing about how his organization is helping to feed Niger.

CHRIS JANSING, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Can you give us a sense of just how relief is getting there? We know that there was such a terrible delay, and that the price was very high.

NICHOLAS DE TORRENTE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS: Our teams on the ground in Niger report an increase in the severely and mildly malnourished children in the feeding centers that we run in Southern Niger. Week after week we continue to see an increase in the number of children who are being admitted and treated, and there are several reasons for this. One of them is that yes there is a relief effort that has finally kicked in, but there is a huge lag time between when the money is pledged, when the food is brought overseas to the regions, and when relief efforts are organized. That only happened in some parts of Niger this week, the first free food distributions for a limited number of people. On top of that we are still in the heart of the hungry season. This is before the next harvest and this is the most critical moment where the food reserves in Niger are always at their lowest, before the harvest in October. Then paradoxically, we’re in the rainy season, and this is where we have an increase in malaria, diarrhea diseases, so that makes children in particular vulnerable. Still, we feel that August will be the worst month; things will get worse before they get better.

Jansing: How do you even handle the enormous scope of the problem, and based on what you just said, sort of divvying up your resources to take care of what’s going on now, but also preparing for what looks like its going to be an increasingly serious problem.

Torrente: There is a massive scale up of relief efforts. Many agencies are now joining in and getting organized. Doctors Without Borders has been preparing for months because we were present in Niger earlier and have been able to anticipate this a little bit.  Still, we are having to do more because of the fact that the emergency response was very much delayed. That was for reasons of funding. There was no media attention or political attention in Niger, and therefore, no emergency funding. And also for reasons of policy. The government and U.N. agencies refused to do what was really needed at the time a few months ago, which was to give out free food to the poorest people, who could not give food to their children. That’s why they’re starving. There is food in the markets in Niger. However, the problem in the past months has has been affordability of food and the huge resistance to give out free food.  This is what is causing this problem to escalate to this point.

Jansing: Well you’ve certainly helped people to understand. 

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