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Inside and beyond Niger

Addressing Africa's short- and long-term needs

Niger famine
A famine in Niger has left millions, many of them children, without sufficient food and clean water.

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MARADI, Niger (CNN) -- Four-year-old Aminu Yahaya lay alongside his mother in the makeshift hospital -- exhausted, his skin peeling, alarmingly thin, and fighting to survive.

His doctors, volunteers from Medecins Sans Frontieres, known in the United States as Doctors Without Borders, felt cautiously optimistic as Aminu gulped milk. While in tough shape, he looked better than other children -- among them 2-year-olds weighing less than 7 pounds -- in the land-locked, West African nation of Niger. Here drought, locusts and endemic poverty helped spawn a vicious famine.

The Niger crisis wasn't a surprise. A U.N. World Food Program warning, and plea, issued nine months ago fell largely on deaf ears. The same happened with two aid initiatives earlier this year. Only recently, with the media focusing on the crisis, have donations started to pour in -- though the amount received was for long still far below what is needed.

The United Nations estimates that more than 3.8 million people, about one-third of Niger's population, desperately need food. Among the suffering are 800,000 children, 160,000 of whom suffer from malnutrition. Even without the famine, more than 60 percent of Nigeriens live on less than $1 a day.

Aminu is part of this story, of how natural and human factors contribute to the widespread suffering. In a sense, his plight is symbolic of the plight of all of Africa, a continent familiar with difficulty and tragedy.

"Niger is not an isolated island of desperation," Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu wrote in a Washington Post editorial this month. "It lies within a sea of problems across Africa -- particularly the 'forgotten emergencies' in poor countries or regions with little strategic or material appeal."

Before Niger, there was Ethiopia in 1985. Each got the world's attention thanks to the media transmitting horrific images. But what has really changed since?

There still is sickness, there still is poverty, and people still are dying. Including Aminu, who died this summer of complications related to severe malnutrition.

He now rests in an unmarked grave in Maradi, a few hours from his tiny, remote village of Laka. Alongside are 11 freshly dug mounds, each representing another young life lost.

Rife with problems

Tens of thousands of other Nigeriens met the same fate, many of them in the desolated countryside -- too weak, too poor to venture into bigger towns for aid and medical help.

"Our children are dying, our elderly are dying," said Balla Dambawa, a village chief. "Look at us? We're all dying. We need help."

Even with much needed rains two or three times a week, the soil is often rock solid. Cattle and donkey bones litter the roads. While people cluster around food and medical stations, many villages are ghost towns -- as residents headed to cities to get aid and because those remaining have precious little energy or resources to spare.

Life in Niger is hardly paradise. One of the world's hottest and poorest nations, a lack of resources or commodities and an abundance of infectious diseases like hepatitis, diarrhea and typhoid contribute to a life expectancy of 48 years. Famine or not, according to UNICEF 26 percent of children in Niger die before age 5.

"Niger has been facing chronic problems for many years," said Nicolas de Torrente, executive director of Doctors Without Borders USA. "Year in and year out, many people live on the brink."

But Niger is by no means alone. An estimated 300 million Africans are undernourished, reports the United Nations.

Currently, famine threatens millions in Africa's Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso, as well. And two decades after its high-profile fight with hunger, most of Ethiopia's 73 million people still live on less than $1 a day.

Poverty is just one of Africa's problems. Many diarrheal and related diseases could be avoided with water filtration systems costing pennies a day. With tens of millions infected, AIDS reaches most every ethnicity, gender and age group.

start quoteYear in and year out, many people live on the brink.end quote
-- Nicolas de Torrente, Doctors Without Borders USA

Of the estimated 1 million malaria deaths annually, 90 percent are in Africa -- and most of those are children. These and man-made problems -- including corruption, political unrest, burdensome debts, trade restrictions and violence -- all drag on peaceful, progressive development.

In some ways, other countries have it worse than Niger. While still a fledgling democracy, Niger doesn't have the horrific violence of Sudan, the egregious corruption on the same scale as Nigeria, or face global ire like Zimbabwe. Earlier this month, Mauritania's government was overthrown in a coup -- a common occurrence in Africa.

In the short-term, food and supplies recently have begun flooding into Niger. Aid groups -- from faith-based relief agencies, to Doctors Without Borders to Moroccan military medics -- have converged on the country.

"Even when people eat only one meal a day, they're still laughing and they're still smiling and they're still willing to even give you something," said Margie Rehm, a 31-year-old Texan volunteering for Oxfam.

Relief efforts have been swift, but late: U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland recently noted that more pledges came in over 10 days than in the previous 10 months. He and others say the crisis blossomed not due to a failure to foresee the situation or plan properly, but rather a paucity of donations and resources to address it.

While the world community has rallied for emergencies -- like the South Asian tsunamis -- responses to more ubiquitous issues (which can lead to crises) are typically less substantial.

"Long-standing refugee situations, where hundreds of thousands of people depend on food and other aid, are often overlooked," said WFP Kenya County Director Tesema Negash.

Pervasive poverty is the root of this and many other problems. It's not that people cannot buy food in Niger markets, for instance; it's just that most people there cannot afford what is available, especially given the relatively steep food prices.

"You need to have development strategies to prevent these crises from happening over and over again," said de Torrente of Doctors Without Borders USA.

nomad
Many Nigerien nomads have lost their livelihood as thousands of cattle have died in the famine.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair championed efforts for more sustained, effective actions to improve the standard of living. The ideal result would be to diminish the likelihood that poor, desperate Africans would become security threats and boost the continent's worth and contributions to the world economy. At the recent G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, leaders canceled $40 billion in debt for 18 countries and doubled overall aid to Africa to $50 billion by 2010.

"If we end up with the continent continuing to get poorer and it's people devoid of any hope, I think that could cause us huge problems," Blair said at the conference. "It simply isn't right to say that nothing can be done."

A land of tragedy, promise

One worry, says Tutu, is the developed world will stereotype Niger and Africa -- lumping people together in light of their many problems, disadvantages and dependence on others, rather than appreciating their individuality, ability and promise.

"We in Africa wonder: Can the world outside see the human beings -- or the potential partners -- behind the unrelenting despair?" Tutu wrote.

Advocacy by luminaries such as Nelson Mandela and singer Bono, leadership by the likes of Blair, and even this summer's Live 8 concerts have helped bring Africa's long-term issues to the fore.

The Niger famine highlighted many such problems, on a sometime gruesome scale.

Africa's short-term needs and long-term prognosis are related, say experts. The more self-reliant that nations like Niger become, the more likely they can avert crises on their own, improve their citizens' lives and become bigger, more successful players in the world economy.

"Ultimately, Africa must begin to stand on its own," said Kenyan politician Uhuru Kenyatta quoting the old proverb. "It's better to teach a man to fish than to give him the fish."

CNN's Greg Botelho, Anderson Cooper and Jeff Koinange contributed to this report

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