Weekly Round-Up - IRINWA-398: 19-Oct-07
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa
Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci
WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 398
13 - 19 October 2007
CONTENTS:
COTE D'IVOIRE: Malnutrition worsens, FAO says
NIGERIA: Food shortages on the horizon with northern farmers declaring
bad crop
TOGO: Observers sanction elections while opposition cries foul
MALI: Looking to communities to lead malaria fight
CHAD: State of emergency imposed even as peace talks conclude
BURKINA FASO: Cotton producers celebrate WTO ruling against US
subsidies
SIERRA LEONE: Lots of rain but little water
COTE D'IVOIRE: Malnutrition worsens, FAO says
Almost a quarter of households in rural parts of Cote d'Ivoire suffer
from food insecurity and malnutrition is spreading, the Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warns. "The main part of the poverty [in
Cote d'Ivoire] is found in rural areas," Marie-Noelle Koyara told
journalists on 18 October. According to the statistics of FAO, between 9
and 22 percent of rural households are either moderately or chronically
food insecure. Aid agencies have been warning for months that there is
mounting evidence of worsening malnutrition, especially in northern Cote
d'Ivoire which is traditionally poorer than the south.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74882
NIGERIA: Food shortages on the horizon with northern farmers declaring
bad crop
Harvests will be poor in the north of Nigeria because of inadequate
rains, according to the Kano State chapter of the All Farmers
Association of Nigeria (AFAN). "The implication of this is that there is
likely to be shortage of food items in the coming season," said the
state chairman of the association, Alhaji Sabo Nanono, speaking on state
radio, as reported by BBC Monitoring on 18 October. The UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told IRIN its "optimistic" mid-September
crop forecast for the Sahel region had been revised down as the rains
have ended early. However, FAO also stressed that the extent of the
problem in northern Nigeria will not be known until after the results of
a joint evaluation mission are announced next week.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74880
TOGO: Observers sanction elections while opposition cries foul
Crucial parliamentary elections in Togo, which donors said they would
use as a benchmark for whether the country is ready to start receiving
development aid again, were flawed according to opposition leaders but
monitor groups declared them free and fair. "Apart from some
deficiencies," the elections were "free, fair and transparent," the
regional organisation, the Economic Community Of West African States
(ECOWAS), which mobilised 100 monitors to scrutinise the polls, said in
a report. The national election commission in Togo announced late on 18
October that the ruling party had won a majority of at least 49 of 81
contested seats. The main opposition party, the Union des Forces de
Changement (UFC), which won 21 seats, challenged the results. In a
statement, it alleged that the voting process had been "compromised" as
ballot boxes were tampered with, fake election cards had been
distributed before the poll, and some voting papers had been destroyed.
Electoral officials said the turnout for the poll was 95 percent. The
ECOWAS report concurred: "In the capital Lome and generally everywhere
in the country, there was a strong participation."
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74852
MALI: Looking to communities to lead malaria fight
Kalifan Keita is a peasant farmer with no medical education, salary or
transport other than a wobbly bicycle, yet he is achieving in Mali what
the government and decades of Western aid have largely failed to do. He
is saving the lives of hundreds of children infected with malaria, many
of whom would otherwise have died after a slow, agonising descent into
delirium and unconsciousness. Keita bicycles around the six villages in
his area carrying a small white box with a red cross on it. Inside are
little white sticks and needles. When he enters a village, mothers with
sick children gather around. Keita takes out a needle and pricks a
child's index finger then smears a drop of blood on the stick which will
quickly indicate if the child has malaria or not. Of 14 tests
administered by Keita on the day IRIN met him, 12 had malaria. Keita
then handed the mother six Artemisin-based Combination Therapy (ACT)
pills and told her to give the child two tablets a day. Within three
days all the children were healthy again. Keita is a volunteer in one of
18 communities that are part of a pilot project being run by the
non-governmental organisation [NGO] Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in a
malaria-endemic region of Mali. What is novel about the project is that
it takes malaria treatment to people's homes instead of expecting them
to travel to distant health centres - and that it works.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74816
CHAD: State of emergency imposed even as peace talks conclude
The government of Chadian President Idriss Deby and four rebel groups
are set to sign a new peace accord at a time when inter-ethnic fighting
has flared and the government has declared a new state of emergency in
three regions. "The government is debating the situation of insecurity
in the east of the country which is becoming worse by the day", said
government spokesman Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor. President Deby issued a
decree on 16 October imposing a state of emergency for 12 days in Chad's
two eastern regions, Ouaddai and Wadi Fira, as well as in the BET
(Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti) Region in Chad's north. Officials said the state
of emergency may be extended beyond the 12 days. Also on 16 October the
town of Abeche, the main hub for relief organisations working in the
east, came under a 6.30 pm curfew by order of the governor of Ouaddai.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74813
BURKINA FASO: Cotton producers celebrate WTO ruling against US subsidies
Cotton industry officials in West Africa's largest cotton producing
nation are celebrating a ruling by the World Trade Organization (WTO)
that US government subsidies to cotton farmers there undermine free
trade. The WTO ruled on 15 October that the US had failed to bring
subsidies and export credit guarantees to US cotton farmers into
conformity with the WTO. The subsidies and export credit guarantees were
put in place through the 2002 Farm Bill which the WTO had ruling against
in 2005. Officials in developing countries and international poverty
analysts say the subsidies drive down prices, making it hard for small
farmers in poor countries to compete on international markets. The
ruling could open the door to billions of dollars in trade sanctions
against the US by Brazil, another major cotton producing country, which
initially brought the case against the US.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74810
SIERRA LEONE: Lots of rain but little water
Freetown is one of the wettest capital cities in the world and yet even
in the midst of heavy downpours its taps are often dry. The result is
that many neighbourhoods have no piped water at all and women and
children must roam the streets with buckets on their heads and in their
hands looking for water. Many residents dig wells in swampy areas or
collect water from polluted streams and rivers. Drinking that water
often makes people sick. The main reason for the lack of water in the
taps is that the surrounding dams are too small, the chief engineer of
the city's water company, known as Guma Valley, Awoonor Williams told
IRIN. "We even have to ration water in the rainy season to ensure there
is something in reserve when it's dry," he said. The water company's
infrastructure is so decrepit that it provides less than 60 percent of
the city's water needs, he said. It is also illogical. The two main dams
supplying Freetown, Guma Dam and Congo Dam, as well as a smaller one in
the town of Regent, are all situated in the west end of the city while
the bulk of the population live in the east.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74805
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