DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNOG SAYS CONFRONTING THE CRISIS IN THE SAHEL IS A PRIORITY

Following are the opening remarks by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, which he delivered on Friday, 29 June on the African Group Initiative – “Urgent Appeal for the Sahel”:

“First of all, let me thank you for inviting me to join this African Group-led “Urgent Appeal for the Sahel”. I am pleased to be here as the Secretary General’s Representative in Geneva and to speak on behalf of the United Nations entities associated with this event as well as on behalf of the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ms. Valerie Amos, who unfortunately could not be present with us today. Together with other Heads of Agencies, she will address you in a video message. I thank also the other distinguished representatives of the international community who share this podium with me. Their participation demonstrates a unity of purpose in addressing the situation in the Sahel, and on behalf of the United Nations, I thank them for their commitment.

I commend the African Group for the initiative to convene today’s meeting. We fully share your concern as to the dimensions and complexity of the Sahel crisis. We appreciate your leadership in raising the profile of this crisis and placing the response of African actors at the centre of attention. We are confident that today’s meeting will bring us a step further towards a more coordinated and coherent approach to the multiple challenges faced by the people in the Sahel.

Confronting the crisis in the Sahel is a priority and a concern for the Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon. When he addressed the Luxembourg Parliament in April this year, he called again on the world to respond. “Simply put, we must do more – and do it quickly”, he said. The world is already reacting, but we must heed this call to step up our efforts.

Allow me to briefly recap the situation. A severe food security and nutrition crisis is affecting over 18 million people in nine countries in the Sahel region. According to UNICEF, more than 1 million children will suffer from severe acute malnutrition in 2012. 3 million children under five will suffer from moderate acute malnutrition.

The lean season started early and is expected to last longer than usual. Out of the US Dollars 1.6 billion required, only 43% has been financed to date. All sectors report significant underfunding; some even have to resort back to basic lifesaving activities only.

The upcoming seasonal rains will aggravate access constraints and increase the risk of epidemics. In addition, a possible desert locust infestation throughout the sub-region already threatens parts of Niger.

Coping capacities of the population have been eroded during recurrent and ever more frequent crises in the Sahel. The situation is exacerbated by global trends, including population growth and high food prices, coupled with significant regional challenges, such as trans-national crime, conflicts and political instability. The Security Council addressed these complex and interconnected challenges at its meeting in February on the impact of transnational organized crime on West Africa and the Sahel.

National Governments recognized their responsibility to lead and take ownership of response efforts at the early signs of the crisis in 2011. They were among the first to sound the alarm and to allocate funds. Those initial responses were complemented by the development of national strategies and action plans.

To build on and enhance those national response plans, Humanitarian Country Teams in the region developed new country appeals for Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania. Partners also revised the Appeal for Niger and updated the food and nutrition sectors in the Chad appeal. These appeals, which were launched in Geneva last week, present a strategic approach to address needs in each individual country.

While humanitarian interventions are crucial to save lives and alleviate suffering, we must go beyond that to break the vicious cycle of food and nutrition crises in the Sahel – and elsewhere in the world. Last week, at Rio+20, the Secretary-General launched the “Zero Hunger Challenge”, and his High-Level Task Force on Global Food Security is being reoriented to focus on the Challenge’s key objectives as a guide for a coherent United Nations system approach to food and nutrition security. The Sahel will be a central focus of these efforts.

Also in the Sahel, all partners must foster a common understanding to support resilience in the short, medium and longer term. In this regard, I welcome initiatives such as the USAID Global Alliance for Action for Drought Resilience and Growth and the European Union’s Partnership for Resilience to food crises in the Sahel.

In order to access food, many people sell the livestock or seeds they would normally have kept for the next season. It is thus crucial that we support the creation of alternative coping mechanisms. Simultaneously, we need to enhance the capacity of national and regional institutions and strengthen governance and institutional capacity to plan and manage resilience.

To build resilience, it will be important to recognize the importance of strengthened access to social services and social protection. In Niger, for example, the national Emergency Response Plan, the 3N initiative, the National Social Protection Strategy and the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction provide ready entry points to advance resilience.

Overall, building resilience requires a fundamental shift away from the paradigm of a “relief-to -development” continuum. Humanitarian, early recovery and development action needs to be effectively linked and designed to reinforce each other to address chronic vulnerability in a strategic manner. Here, UNDP has an important role to play in dealing with the underlying causes. The UNDP Millennium Development Goals Acceleration Framework (MAF) action plans facilitate a prioritization of key and strategic actions, coordination and involvement of stakeholders on off-track MDG targets and generate a shared action plan. Regional coordination has been fundamental to these efforts.

Humanitarian actors, including the IFRC, ICRC, NGOs and other civil society partners, have moved quickly to boost capacity at both national and regional level, providing more effective coordination. Although the capacity of many of the newly formed humanitarian country teams is still limited, partners have rapidly deployed staff with experience in humanitarian emergency programming to assess needs, preposition food and non-food items and increase the operations of the country teams throughout the region.
OCHA is working to ensure that efforts in the nine affected countries are well-coordinated and that progress can be monitored. The newly appointed Regional Humanitarian Coordinator, David Gressly, who was here last week, supports Resident and Humanitarian Coordinators to build community resilience, prioritize resources and address specific challenges such as security and access, notably through collaboration with regional organizations, peace and security stakeholders and the United Nations Office for West Africa.

Instability and violence are critical contributing factors to the current crisis, which is aggravated by armed confrontations in Northern Mali. UNHCR reports that close to 400,000 Malians have been displaced within Mali and to neighbouring countries. However, due to lack of funding, the provision of even the most basic assistance is far below the minimum humanitarian standards.

To increase food security, WFP currently assists almost 4 million people. Very early purchases of nearly 60,000 metric tons of food, both internationally and in the region, allowed the prepositioning of urgently needed commodities prior to the rainy season and to maintain a robust pipeline of food.

FAO’s immediate response to the crisis focuses on protecting and restoring resilient livelihoods, including by sustaining the main planting season, increasing off-season irrigated crop production and strengthening the coping capacity of herders.

WHO and UNICEF warn that most vulnerable people, and particularly children under the age of five, die of diseases, often preventable ones, whose impact on the body is aggravated by a weak nutritional status. Health systems in the Sahel region are among the weakest in the world, failing to provide even basic services.

The Sahel crisis is not a one-off emergency, but a long-term challenge. We cannot conceive of sustainable development without ensuring food security. In order to increase food security, some key areas will require increased policy attention including: raising agricultural productivity based on sustainable agriculture; ensuring that national policies adopt nutrition into their frameworks; supporting resilience in Africa; and empowering women and rural populations through access to technologies, assets and resources that can facilitate more inclusive development.

We are at a critical stage now to resist future shocks. This important point was also stressed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ms. Valerie Amos, during her visit to Senegal and Burkina Faso in late May. The implementation of multi-year, flexible funding mechanisms would allow for such an easy shift between short and longer term action.

In moving forward, our approach needs to be grounded in supporting national ownership, aligning our support with existing national and regional efforts and ensuring effective coordination, backed by dedicated resources. Above all, we need a clear recognition that the comprehensive approach offers the opportunity to tackle structural issues over the medium to long term.

A tragedy can be averted – but only if we keep the momentum. This requires continuing to build our response, to boost the capacity of humanitarian actors on the ground, and to make additional funding available.

All the United Nations entities that I have the honour to represent today are committed to ensuring that our humanitarian efforts have maximum impact. We need your support to meet our common goal: to end the cycle of hunger and to ensure long-term stability in the Sahel.”


For use of the information media; not an official record

DG12/002E