A staggering 18 million people are facing food shortages throughout the Sahel region of West Africa – more than half the population of Canada. There have been successive poor harvests, rising food and fuel costs, political unrest, and hundreds of thousands of refugees due to conflict. Crop yields are either non-existent or greatly reduced. The remaining crops that could be harvested are now being damaged by locusts. What is most worrisome is the rising levels of acute malnutrition in children, and it is they who are affected most strongly in this drought. The humanitarian situation in the Sahel grows more serious each day.
On Tuesday, August 7, the Canadian Government announced that it will match Canadian charitable donations dollar for dollar through the Sahel Crisis Matching Fund. This fund will help Canadian non-governmental organizations to provide more food, nutritional support, emergency health care, water and sanitation and livelihood support. CRWRC and other qualified organizations are eligible to apply. The match begins immediately and will run until September 30.
According to Wayne de Jong, CRWRC’s Director of Disaster Response and Rehabilitation, “This drought is equal in scope and severity to the East Africa drought last year, but has received scant media attention until very recently. We hope and pray that this new Sahel Crisis Matching Fund will help to stimulate giving, and constituents will echo their generosity of last year towards the East Africa drought response, which enabled CRWRC to provide necessary emergency assistance as well as Disaster Risk Reduction community planning that continues until the present.”
Since April of this year, CRWRC has focused its West Africa drought response efforts on Niger, assisting 28,000 people through food provision, food for work initiatives and the distribution of improved seeds. Three International Relief Manager couples, together with CRWRC staff and partner organizations, are managing the distribution of six-months of food supplies to these 4,000 families in urban and rural communities. They have also organized numerous food for work activities, including digging 124,346 demi-lunes to collect water for plants, digging 21,760 zaiholes for planting seeds using the conservation farming method, planting several tree nurseries, improving roads so that they will have access to markets once the harvest comes, and constructing nine school classrooms and cereal banks in exchange for food assistance.
This assistance has long-term impacts and enables farmers to work in their fields to grow and harvest their next crop in late 2012, rather than being forced to migrate elsewhere to find work. CRWRC also has long-standing community development partners in the field who will continue with long-term capacity building work when this disaster response project concludes. While CRWRC’s efforts are currently focused on the food crisis in Niger, the International Disaster Response Team is considering the support of drought response efforts in other countries as well.
Please consider donating to the West Africa drought response to support CRWRC’s efforts in West Africa, and have your donation matched dollar for dollar!
Through your generosity, CRWRC is able to help people with their immediate food needs, as well as invest in longer term agricultural development programs through local partners.
Checks marked “West Africa Drought 2012” can also be sent to:
CRWRC US
2850 Kalamazoo Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49560
ph: 1-800-55-CRWRC
CRWRC Canada
3475 Mainway
P.O. Box 5070 STN LCD
Burlington, Ontario, L7R 3Y8
ph: 1-800-730-3490
~ CRWRC Communications
