Arrangement

The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, NUPI, has the pleasure of inviting you to a seminar with Robert Piper, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel for UNOCHA:

"The Sahel region – challenges of both chronic and acute crises"

This year in the Sahel more than 11 million people are facing food shortages, and more than 1.5 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. In almost all countries in the region survey results show malnutrition levels of above 10 percent and above 15 percent in parts of Chad, Mauritania and Niger. Most vulnerable are those most affected by the 2012 drought and who have not been able to recover their seeds and animal stocks, and the about 500,000 Malians displaced by the conflict in the north. This is therefore an acute crisis and humanitarian agencies have raised their appeal to help Sahelians affected by hunger.

However, what is currently taking place in the Sahel is not new. This is also a chronic crisis and its causes are multidimensional related both to decades of neglect with regard to sufficient investment in food security measures and increased climatic variability and unpredictability. However, as made evident with last year’s upheavals in Mali, many of the root causes also have a political dimension. The Sahel needs more humanitarian assistance, but it also needs political solutions to local conflicts, in Mali and elsewhere in the region, and it needs long-term solution to problems related to governance and institution-building. This seminar will therefore highlight this crisis as a multidimensional problem that must be tackled by a broad-based approach, including measures to tackle poverty and drought, but also the institutional weaknesses and conflicts that persists in the Sahel.

Relevant reading:

• The Mali presidential elections: outcomes and challenges
• The trouble in Mali – corruption, collusion, resistance

• The Sahel region – challenges of both chronic and acute crisesRobert Piper, UNOCHA – Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel
• Comments Morten Bøås,
  Research Professor, NUPI
• Dr. Titus Tenga
  , International Director, Strømme Foundation
• Q & A

Chair: Ole-Jacob Sending
, Research Director, NUPI

Photo: UNOCHA