Sure we all know about Pakistan…

Pakistan players in the spotlight

… the floods, I mean, as well as the alleged cricket cheats, but what about starving Niger!

The people of Niger are in the worst position in their post-colonial history

Gordon Brown returned to front-line politics today (31 August 2010), writing in The Independent and making an appeal for Britain to fund food aid to the landlocked African state of Niger where more than half the population face starvation.

In an article for The Independent, the former prime minister expresses frustration that the UK, US and other states have failed to contribute enough money to a United Nations appeal, leaving it $80m (£51m) short of target – and delivering little more than half the food needed.

While dramatic TV footage of the flooding in Pakistan has prompted governments to commit hundreds of millions to the aid effort there, the slowly worsening humanitarian crisis in Niger has been largely ignored by donors and the media. After a drought ruined much of last year’s harvest, extending the annual “hunger season” from four to eight months, the rains have now come excessively, sweeping away homes, grain stores and livestock.

And so the editors of the world’s news headlines elevate the crises of their choice and condemn others to obscurity…

Although less well-known than neighbouring Nigeria, Niger is one of the world’s largest countries with a landmass five times bigger than the UK. An arid land whose people eke out a living from subsistence farming, it is desperately poor. GDP per capita is the fifth lowest of 227 nations, ahead of Somalia, Liberia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The floods are its worst for 80 years.

Colleague Sue Jarrett has lived and worked in Niger and she has been highlighting the plight of Niger on Facebook for some time now…

See for example BBC Radio 4 From Our Own Correspondent on 22 August 2010 and BBC World Africa news website on 24 August 2010 for photographs of the flooding in Niger.

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