Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-08-Speech-4-137"
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the food crisis that Niger is currently sustaining is intolerable. It is intolerable because populations, and children in particular, are starving and are in vital need of aid. Yet, the way in which this crisis has been exploited to criticise the slowness of the donors and to accuse them of failing to provide aid to people in danger, prompts me to make a handful of remarks aimed simply at presenting an objective analysis of the prevailing situation in Niger and at offering accurate information, at least with regard to European aid.
The debates, which will begin next year, on allocations after the ninth EDF will without doubt take account of the lessons learnt from this food crisis. Yet, it must be stated right now that, whatever the Commission may do for Niger, the challenge remains immense. It will be difficult to rise to it without more substantial development aid from the entire international community. Increasing the funding for development aid is, as you know, the Commission’s priority, and that is the message we will deliver in New York.
Secondly, with regard to the response from the international aid organisations, I regret to observe that it could have been better coordinated and been the subject of greater coordination with the Government of Niger and among the aid organisations, be they NGOs or United Nations agencies, and whether at the warning and detection stage or at the stage of responding to the crisis and targeting needs. The Commission is prepared to give its backing to an independent evaluation aimed at identifying the means for improving aid coordination in a similar situation.
I would like to say a word about donor action. I confess to being troubled – I do not disguise the fact – by the remarks made by certain humanitarian organisations. As a donor, the Commission could have acted more swiftly if, in the spring, it had discovered, there at the scene, the humanitarian organisations it had hoped to find. I note, however, that, once the media machine snowballed, there was no longer any difficulty in finding partners prepared to come to Niger. I have always paid tribute to the expertise and commitment of the humanitarian organisations that are our partners, but the remarks that I heard from a number of them about the food crises in Africa, whether in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa or South Africa, asserting that the problem was due to the inadequate donor response, surprised me. It is pushing it, intellectually, to argue along those lines. The food crises in Africa – as you are very well aware – are complex phenomena that are the result of several factors: the climate, demographics, the state of health of the populations – one only has to think, for example, of the disastrous effects of AIDS in southern Africa as a result of lower physical resistance – political governance and economic governance. To claim that donor aid would be enough to prevent these crises does not appear to me to be entirely fair. It is also, furthermore, a slightly paternalistic and moralistic attitude, which I reject.
Rest assured that the Commission will remain extremely vigilant, and I hope that, from now on, when we become aware of a problem and an appeal is made, we will find operator and partner organisations to enable us to work more swiftly.
Niger is one of the poorest countries on the planet. It forms part of the driest region of the Sahel, where the supply of food is always in the balance. Security of the food supply in Niger is extremely fragile and there are recurring malnutrition problems. The slightest climatic uncertainty, such as rain failures or indeed the destruction of crops by predators, be they birds or locusts, the slightest market price disruption immediately gives rise to food shortage problems. People use up their stocks too soon, storehouses are empty from April and food products become scarce at the markets or are sold at soaring prices. People have to wait until the following harvest in September or October, always assuming, of course, that there is a proper rainy season. The crisis that we are currently facing is, however, more severe than in previous years. The invasions of locusts at the end of the summer of 2004 and the poor rainfall in several areas of the Sahel, and particularly in certain regions of Niger, resulted in a very poor harvest.
As far back as September 2004, the Commission released EUR 25.5 million for the anti-locust campaign in the most affected countries of the Sahel, that is to say Senegal, Chad, Mauritania, Mali and Niger, and funds have been allocated to the FAO (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation).
As far back as February/March 2005, the warning signs of a difficult food shortage emerged in Niger. There was a rapid increase in the price of grain, a drop in the price of livestock, a mass and premature transhumance of herds and a shortage of local food products at the markets. In March, the Government of Niger, relying on information from the national agency for the prevention and management of food crises, broadly supported by the Commission, released money to buy 42 000 tonnes of grain resold cheaply, and distributed food in return for work requiring high-intensity labour. For its part, the World Food Programme, intervening in support of the national agency, launched an appeal for a sum of EUR 2.3 million, to which the Commission responded immediately with an allocation of EUR 1 million. At that time, no one, not the government, the WFP or the NGOs, were able, due to the lack of precise overall data, to assess whether it was a slightly more difficult crisis than in previous years or a serious food crisis.
The Commission consequently made contact with aid organisations to ascertain their analysis, and, above all, their plan, as we did not receive any request for funding at that time. None of the NGOs, and none of the operating bodies with which we currently work, contacted us to make an appeal to us, as is usually the case, given that, as you know, the Commission itself does not participate in this type of intervention operation.
It was only at the end of May and beginning of June that the nutritional surveys carried out in certain areas of the country revealed the crisis underway. It was then that the humanitarian partners appeared. The Commission thus took two urgent decisions, through ECHO, to release a total amount of EUR 6.3 million. That is the chronology of events.
What is the situation today? A recent ECHO evaluation mission concluded that nutritional requirements are today being met to a satisfactory degree, even though there is some delay in implementing the aid. The Commission is obviously prepared to step up its aid if additional needs emerge. At present, what is needed is effective coordination between the partners on the ground to enable them to target areas successfully and to speed up the aid. The European Commission has also released EUR 2 million for Mali, EUR 4.6 million for Eritrea and EUR 4.5 million for Ethiopia, countries that have also been affected by food and nutrition crisis situations.
This crisis concerns us, and calls for us all to learn the lessons from it in full. For my part, I can see two main lessons. With regard to Niger first of all, it is crucial that, in addition to humanitarian efforts, a long-lasting solution be found to addressing the country’s vulnerability, by enhancing the food security strategy. That is precisely the policy that has been adopted by the Commission over many years in an attempt to respond to this crisis on a long-term basis. I am mainly referring to irrigation projects, projects to build reservoirs and so forth, which benefit from Community funding.
Niger’s national early warning systems and mechanisms for detecting food shortages must be supported and enhanced. Rural development and market organisation programmes form part of this objective, as do school meals. The Commission is Niger’s principal donor. The ninth EDF has enabled this country to benefit from a funding package of nearly EUR 400 million, including EUR 60.6 million for developing food security. The budget heading ‘food security’ is devoting EUR 15 million to a support programme (2004 to 2006) for the national agency for the prevention and management of food crises. But for a handful of European countries, the Commission is, however, practically alone in helping this country."@en1
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