Emergency Appeal Mali: Food Insecurity
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1 Emergency appeal Mali: Food insecurity Emergency appeal n° MDRML009 GLIDE n° OT-2011-000205-MLI 7 June 2012 This Emergency Appeal seeks CHF 2,537,138 in cash, kind, or services to support the Mali Red Cross to assist 142,740 beneficiaries (21,960 households) for 9 months, and will be completed by the end of February, 2013. CHF 258,538 was allocated from the IFRC’s Disaster Relief fund on 5 June 2012 to initiate the activities in Mali. A Final Report will be made available by May 2013 (three months after the end of the operation). Summary: This Emergency Appeal seeks to address food insecurity among 21,960 agro-pastoralist households (142,740 beneficiaries), approximately 7.7% of those affected by insufficient rainfall in 2011 across the Malian Sahel belt. In February, the Government of Mali identified 1,841,513 people in 111 communes as being food insecure1. In line with the IFRC’s “twin-track” approach to addressing food insecurity, the Mali Red Cross (MRC) will provide immediate food distribution to address short term emergency needs, along with seeds and tools distribution for the main cash crop season. It will also address malnutrition through screening and referral of acute malnutrition cases to existing health centres. Complementary activities will include fodder for small livestock, hygiene promotion, longer-term agricultural support and improvement of infrastructure (water pumps and irrigation, fences for gardens). These longer-term solutions will help the most vulnerable households through the lean In February 2012, the Malian Red Cross started providing food rations to agro-pastoralist communities in the food insecure season until the 2012 rains, restore and maintain areas of the region of Kayes, bordering Mauritania and their livelihoods and allow them to strengthen Senegal, to families who have run out of food stocks for 2012. their level of self-sufficiency in preparation for the Photo credit: Mali Red Cross/IFRC. next drought cycle. The operation will prioritize the western regions of Kayes and Koulikoro, reinforcing the Mali Red Cross PNS- supported interventions in food security and nutrition, as those two regions are faced with a complex and large humanitarian crisis with the highest malnutrition rates in southern Mali. It will then expand to the other southern regions of Mopti, Segou and Sikasso as resources become available through this emergency appeal. 1 Commissariat à la Sécurité alimentaire, Système d’Alerte Précoce. “Évaluation Définitive de la Situation Alimentaire: Campagne Agricole 2011-2012” République du Mali, Bamako, February 2012. 2 This appeal follows a DREF that was launched in January and concluded on April 9th, 2012 to assist the Mali Red Cross in conducting a food security assessment in 4 regions (Kayes, Koulikoro, Mopti and Segou) and delivering emergency food aid and hygiene promotion in the most affected region of Kayes. In February 2012, the Mali Red Cross started providing food rations to agro-pastoralist communities in food insecure areas of the region of Kayes, bordering Mauritania and Senegal, assisting families who had run out of food stocks. This helped these families maintain their goats and assets, rather than sell them off at low prices on the local markets and enabled them to protect their livelihoods. The areas North of Mopti (Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal) are affected by armed conflict and are not addressed in this appeal as the MRC is responding in these regions with the support of the ICRC. This appeal also focuses exclusively on the food security crisis and not the population movement created by the insecurity situation. The Mali Red Cross is currently reviewing its strategy to intervene on behalf of these vulnerable groups in Bamako and in the rest of Southern Mali. Based on the course of action to be developed, a separate emergency appeal may be launched over the next few weeks. <click here for Emergency Appeal Budget; here for a map of the affected area; or here for contact details> The situation Several countries in the Sahel are again facing food insecurity and malnutrition in 2012. The localized cereal production deficits for 2011/2012, reduced pasture areas for livestock and sustained high levels of food prices in some markets are already affecting 18.4 million persons across the Sahel belt (from Senegal and Mauritania to Chad)2. The West African regional humanitarian actors issued a strategic document in December 2011 and revised on 7 February 20123 calling for early response, by delivering food assistance either in cash or in kind in order to meet the needs of those hardest hit by crop failure and diminishing purchasing power while trying to protect their livelihoods. The latest Food Crisis Prevention Network (Réseau de Prévention des Crises Alimentaires) meeting concluded that poor biomass production was recorded in the entire pastoral Sahel belt with few exceptions4. As a consequence, early transhumance started towards those few areas in which biomass production has not been affected negatively5. This unusually early movement of livestock and people is putting more stress on limited pastures and might lead to further conflicts around water points and scarce pasture areas. According to the Government of Burkina Faso, an armed confrontation between Malian Dogon farmers and nomadic Fulani pastoralists from Burkina Faso left thirty people dead on the 22nd of May, and is reported to be connected to contested access-rights to pasture.6 Food security response strategies are being developed across the region to prepare for the peak of the hungry season, when severe acute malnutrition (SAM) as a result of food insecurity is expected to affect about 1.1 million children and up to 1.5 million in the current worst case scenario, while another 3 million children will be at risk of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM)7. Price increases will affect economic access to food of the poorest households, who have to rely on markets to meet their food needs for 3-4 months in a normal year, and for up to 8 months in some cases in 2012, until their next harvest on the condition of sufficient rains this year. 2 OCHA, Sahel Humanitarian Snapshot April 2012. 3 May 2012. 3 “Preparation for a Food and Nutrition crisis in the Sahel and neighbouring countries.” (version 2 12 feb 2012) Developed by the Regional Working Group on Food Security and Nutrition 4 Certain parts of Gourma (geographic zone ranging from Mali to Burkina Faso), Maradi (administrative zones in Niger), and the islands of Lake Chad. 5 FAO Sahel Information Note , 6 February 2012 6 “Au moins 25 Burkinabés tués à la frontière avec le Mali dans des violences”. Reliefweb, 25 May 2012. http://reliefweb.int/node/499207 7 UNICEF, Sahel Nutrition Crisis and Mali Complex Emergency. Situation Update No.3 10 May 2012 3 Source: http://www.fews.net/docs/Publications/Mali_FSOU_March_2013_En_Final.pdf In response to the crisis the Government of Mali has launched an appeal to support the distribution of 45,886 tonnes of cereals to the inhabitants of the 104 communes classified as food insecure in December 2011. The government’s response plan is based on their early warning system which monitors the 340 communes most at risk of food insecurity out of the 703 communes in the country regularly. Food insecurity in Mali is structural and caused by climate, pests, expensive agricultural inputs, subsistence farming and herding practices, lack of access to credit, cereal price speculation, inadequate basic infrastructures, limited water, and poor food storage and hygiene practices. Significant increases of food prices have been observed, particularly for millet. From March 2012 to April 2012 the prices for millet increased in Segou (by 16%) and in Sikasso (by 14%). In the same timeframe the millet-price in Bamako increased by 23%, which is a 100% increase compared to April 2011 and 104% higher than the five-year average8. In general, the cereal prices in April 2012 had been at a dramatic level compared to the five-year average: Kayes +60%, Mopti +85%, Sikasso +98%, Bamako +104% and Segou +116%.9 Variable levels of crop losses were identified during the assessment process within villages, with households losing between 30-80% of their crops. In May 2012 the FAO estimated the number of persons likely to be affected by food insecurity in Mali during the coming months to reach 3.5 million individuals (23% of the population)10, with nearly half (1.84 million persons) to suffer from severe food insecurity11. According to estimates of the Nutrition Cluster in Mali, co- chaired by UNICEF and the Ministry of Health, 175,000 children under five years of age will be suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) with a projected worst-case scenario of 220,000 cases and another 385,000 children suffering from moderate acute malnutrition (MAM), which could rise to 475,000 cases12. The latest UNICEF SMART nutrition survey (July 2011) shows a 10.9% Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate for children under five, out of which 2.2% Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM).13 This is just above the serious thresholds for emergency14 and nutrition actors in country are preparing scale up capacity in order to respond to the anticipated increase in demand. It is estimated that in many parts of Mali food insecurity levels will reach IPC phase15 4 (emergency) while in isolated conflict areas of northern Mali level 5 (famine) could be reached.16 The recent political developments in Mali are further exacerbating the deteriorating food security situation. The armed confrontation in Northern Mali that started in January 2012, the following coup in Bamako in 8 FAO, WFP: Food Security and Humanitarian Implications in West Africa and the Sahel. April 2012 9 Interagency Food Security and Nutrition Working Group Dakar, FAO-presentation, Dakar, 30 May 2012 10 FAO, Executive Brief: The Sahel Crisis 2012.