Urgent action is needed to stop drought in West Africa’s Sahel region turning into a humanitarian disaster affecting 13 million people, Oxfam says.

The charity says the international community waited too long to respond to famine in East Africa last year.

Oxfam has launched a £23m ($36m) emergency appeal to help reach more than a million of the most vulnerable.

A BBC correspondent says refugees fleeing fighting in northern Mali are adding to the problem.

Launching its appeal, Oxfam said that malnutrition rates across Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and northern Senegal are hovering between 10% and 15%, and in some areas have risen beyond the emergency threshold level of 15%.

It says that more than one million children in the Sahel region are at risk of severe malnutrition.

In parts of Chad, Oxfam says, some villagers are digging up ant hills to gather grain that the ants have stored.

The agency says that drought, high food prices, severe poverty and regional conflict are causing the crisis.

“Millions of people are on the threshold of a major crisis,” said Mamadou Biteye, Oxfam Regional Director for West Africa.

“All signs point to a drought becoming a catastrophe if nothing is done soon. The world cannot allow this to happen. A concerted aid effort is needed to stop tens of thousands dying due to international complacency.”

He added: “We witnessed last year the situation spiralling out of control in East Africa as the aid community failed to act swiftly. The worst can be avoided and thousands of lives will be saved if we act now. It’s that simple.”

BBC world affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge says that recent fighting between rebels and the army in northern Mali has caused more than 100,000 people to flee their homes – half of them crossing into Niger and other countries that are already hard-pressed.

In January, Oxfam and Save the Children said that thousands of people in East Africa died needlessly from famine last year because the international community failed to heed early warnings.

Africa’s sustainable agriculture is a need of the hour if the country has to be brought out of poverty and hunger. Sustainable farming in Africa is therefore being given much boost by the World Bank, UNO in order to reform African agriculture. “Africa Project 2020” is a step taken in this direction.

The agricultural production in many of the African countries is quite low in comparison with the rest of the world. Due to this fact, there has been poverty and deprivation surrounding the continent and most of the people are living below poverty line. The result is high level of infant mortality rates, low level of economic development.

Sustainable Agriculture in Africa

Sustainable agriculture is a need of the hour for Africa if the country wants to come out of the shackles of poverty and become self sufficient in food production and food security. Due to these reasons, there has been a number of steps are being taken by the government of the African countries.

Community training is being given to the people of the rural areas, women are also being taught the basics of agriculture so that they too can participate in the programme. The people are also being trained in bio-intensive agriculture, poultry farming, rainwater harvesting and the like fields which are associated with agriculture.

Improving African Agriculture

In this regard, efforts are being taken world over to improve African agriculture. The World Bank, The United Nations are some of the international bodies which have been making efforts in this regard and have borne fruits as well.
For the effective development of sustainable agriculture the economists too are working hard in order to bring out measures to reform the agriculture in Africa. It has been brought to the knowledge of everyone that existing efforts have not been sufficient in improving the agriculture of Africa so much more is desired.

“Africa Project 2020” is thereby an effort in this direction. The aim of the project is to make Africa self sufficient in food production, since at present a large amount of food grains are exported from the European and Asian countries. So it is an initiative in the right direction.