Niger avoids "worst" in food crisis, gov't says

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Sun Aug 29, 2010 10:14am EDT

* Niger says avoids the worst in food crisis

* Livestock hard hit by shortage of fodder

* U.N. still awaiting aid funding for coming months



By Abdoulaye Massalatchi

NIAMEY, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Niger will avoid the "worst" in its most severe food crisis since 2005 with aid reaching millions left hungry by last year's failed harvest, the government said.

The crisis had risked becoming catastrophic without quick distribution of food to the nearly 8 million in need, according to the United Nations.

"I can say that with the support of partners and with the help of Nigeriens, we have been able to avoid the worst case," said Prime Minister Mahamadou Danda over state television on Saturday night.

He said shortages of animal fodder, however, have had an "extreme" impact on livestock populations.

Failed rains last year slashed agricultural and pastoral production across a broad swath of the Sahel region, leaving some 10 million people at risk leading up to the 2010 harvest in October, the United Nations said.

The World Food Program is still waiting for donor assistance to fund aid work through the coming months.

The food crisis was considered more severe than the last emergency in 2005 -- which killed thousands -- but the U.N. said Niger was better prepared to face it in part due to better government cooperation.

In 2005, President Mamadou Tandja played down the significance of the crisis until media reporting on the scale of the hunger made his position untenable.

The military junta that ousted Tandja in a coup in February was quick to reverse this position and has gone as far as speaking of famine, a term most aid workers have not used.

Danda said health centers set up around the country have treated nearly 100,000 malnourished children and that United Nations aid bodies have also helped hundreds of thousands of children, pregnant women and nursing mothers.

The U.N.'s World Food Program was expected to have aided 5.5 million people in August alone.

Droughts are recurrent in the Sahel and experts say they could become more frequent due to climate change, leading to further humanitarian crises if long-term agricultural policies are not improved.

In the United Nations' 2009 human development index, Niger ranked last out of 182 countries covered.

(Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Angus MacSwan)







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