Frequently Asked Questions about the Crisis in West Africa August 4 What is the situation in Niger? At least 25 percent of Niger's population of 12 million is in need of food assistance. Almost 800,000 of those in need are children. Are there other places in Africa you are worried about? Yes, the problem is not limited to Niger. We are concerned about growing food problems in Mali, which is also in West Africa, as well as in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Malawi. What has caused the food shortages? Severe drought and an infestation of locusts over the past year have ruined harvests and driven food prices sky high in West Africa. Food is so scarce that many families are struggling to find anything to eat. Farmers are being forced to sell their livelihoods—including their sheep and goats—at very low prices to get food. We expect the crisis to continue to get worse over the next four to five weeks. We are in a race against time right now. What are you doing to help? Save the Children is on the ground in Niger and Mali working to provide immediate food and health assistance. Three planes filled with essential Save the Children supplies have landed in the past few days in Niger. We are setting up special feeding centers for the most severely malnourished children and we are distributing food to malnourished children in their villages. One of the products we are using is Plumpy'nut. What is Plumpy'nut? It is a new tool in the War on Hunger – and a very effective one. It is a peanut-flavored paste that is fortified with all the nutrients a severely malnourished child needs to recover and avoid death. Mothers can give it to their children at home. It helps most malnourished children recover in their villages rather than having to go to feeding centers for intensive care. Plumpy'nut is enabling us to help thousands more malnourished children in situations like Niger. What happens to children at the feeding centers? Children are evaluated before they are admitted to the feeding centers. These centers are designed to help children with complications so severe that they face likely death without supervised intensive care. Most of the children admitted to these centers are between the ages of two and five. They are treated for infections and given a special milk formula that enables children on the brink of starvation to recover. The organs of a child shut down in the last stages of starvation. This treatment helps revive those organs, and allows a child to begin to recover and to put on weight. Often, after three to four weeks of treatment, starving children are able to recover sufficiently so they return to their villages where we provide supplementary feeding. How many children die at the feeding centers? Very few, actually. These feeding centers have a proven track record of success. In Ethiopia, two summers ago, for example, in many of the centers 95 percent of the children admitted survived and were able to return home. We are hoping to see similar results in Niger. Why was the response so slow to this crisis? The resources were slow to come. The United Nations first warned that food was becoming scarce in Niger last November. And they issued another warning in May, when Save the Children began doing its own assessments. The initial United Nations appeals did not draw much response from governments. Then came the tsunami of December 26 in south Asia, which took attention away from the problems in West Africa. However, this summer, with increasing evidence that the crisis was getting worse, the international community, including the U.S. government, has begun to respond. This is now a top priority for the United Nations, many governments and many private relief agencies such as Save the Children. What are we learning from the situation in Niger? We are learning once again that world hunger is still a huge problem, especially in Africa. We need more resources and better systems in place to respond more quickly to these natural disasters and to make the needs of children a top priority. We also need long-term investments in food security, health, education and safe drinking water—and policies to promote more efficient agricultural production-–to help lessen the impact of these kinds of disasters. What can Americans do to help? Two things. First, you can go to Save the Children's website at www.savechildren.org and ask the President and Congress to support a $600 million increase to fight hunger in Niger and other crisis areas in the world. Currently hunger programs that Save the Children operates in 13 other countries are being threatened with elimination due to a lack of US government resources -- and there are many other organizations facing similar cutbacks. According to the UN, if the international community had responded to Niger's appeals for help last year, a child could have been saved from malnourishment for as little as $1 a day. Now, it will cost 80 times as much to save this child. We can avoid the high cost of emergency spending if we begin to invest in the underlying causes of hunger and malnutrition. Second, you can go to our website at www.savethechildren.org or the websites of other organizations working to deliver food aid in this area and support our efforts in West Africa. These problems seem endless? Why should we care? Actually, investments in long term developmental food aid have allowed Save the Children and other organizations to address the root causes of hunger and malnutrition by increasing agricultural productivity, improving access to education, providing access to clean water and thereby decreasing the incidence of disease, and increasing household incomes and food stocks. We just need the commitment from the US Government and the international community to provide the resources necessary so we can end world hunger and help children survive and thrive. Donate now to help children and families in West Africa.