The United Nations said on Monday that food distribution targeting Niger’s most vulnerable populations will continue beyond the harvests hoped to return food security to the impoverished West African state.
”We will continue to assist Niger as long as we have the means to do so,” Michele Falavigna, the UN resident representative in the capital, Niamey, told reporters. ”Any report suggesting otherwise could hamper the flow of aid to Niger.”
Nomadic pastoralists, who may have lost most of their herds during the cycles of drought that wizened the crops in the world’s poorest country, are the primary targets of the food aid, Falavigna said.
Other recipients of the emergency rations include highly indebted farmers and families in areas of the mostly desert nation where the harvests are not likely to be plentiful.
It was not immediately clear what criteria would be used to determine who among the 12-million people of Niger will be eligible for additional aid.
The announcement came amid bubbling controversy over further food distribution beyond harvest time.
Many international and non-governmental agencies, including Catholic Relief Services and the European Union, have expressed concern that free food distributions after the harvests will drive millet prices below market value and damage the chances of recovery for indebted farmers.
Prime Minister Hama Amadou joined the debate last week with a declaration to the BBC that ”assistance was no longer needed”, and that to continue distributions would be an affront to the country’s dignity.
His statement stunned relief groups as he had been the first to acknowledge the food shortages in Niger publicly and plead for aid in May this year.
Niger, holding the last rung on the UN development index, suffers from chronic food shortages, made worse by last year’s invasion of desert locusts that was the worst in more than a decade.
More than 40 000 children have been treated for severe malnutrition. — Sapa-AFP