September 2011
In 2010 Christian Aid launched an appeal to provide immediate help to the ten million people who faced severe food shortages across the Sahel region of Africa. Since then, Christian Aid has been working through partners in there to help communities recover their livelihoods.
Lack of food has been an ongoing concern in the region for some time and reached a critical stage midway through 2010.
A combination of cyclical drought, floods and irregular harvests led to a seriously reduced food production that had disastrous results across the region.
In August and September 2010, severe flooding across the region compounded the situation and left hundreds of thousands of people without food and shelter.
The storms were of such intensity that many of the communities had homes, livestock and food reserves washed away.
Up to 200,000 people were left homeless in Niger where the river Niger burst its banks and all of the country’s eight regions saw some form of flooding.
An estimated 105,000 people were directly affected in Burkina Faso and thousands more suffered in Mali.
Christian Aid has a presence and long term partners in Mali and Burkina Faso. We have also been delivering humanitarian assistance through our partners in Niger since 2005. Since 2010, we have been working with new partners to scale up our work in Niger.
Our strategy focused on both immediate relief and longer term projects to protect vulnerable communities against future crises.
Christian Aid's relief effort
Christian Aid
- provided more than 100 tonnes of cereal to feed almost 2000 households in Niger.
- gave cash in exchange for work activities for 1,600 people, which enabled land recuperation of 423,5 hectares, the planting of 1,300 seeds and 13,100 plants in Diffa, East Niger.
- distributed food and animal feeding, benefitting 28,000 people in Burkina Faso.
- gave food for more than 4000 victims of the floods.
- ensured 720 households in Mali receive food for work.
Christian Aid was also given a grant for €700,000 from the EU to be used for a seven-month project that helped provide food in the short term and reduce the impact of future shortages.
Further information
Reproduced courtesy of The Times and News International. © News International
