UN hopes meeting will raise $1 billion for key Sahel nations

U.N. humanitarian chief is hoping a major ministerial meeting Tuesday will t only raise $1 billion for three countries at epicenter of a humanitarian crisis in Africa’s Sahel region but also spur leers to dress underlying causes, including increasing conflict and insecurity, weak governance and a lack of development.

Undersecretary-General Mark Lowcock said in an interview with Associated Press that troubling situation in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger is a symptom “of failure to deal with all of those causes of problems” as well as rapid population growth and climate change.

As a result, he said, “we have a record number of people, more than 13 million, needing humanitarian assistance across border areas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, and most of m are children.”

virtual ministerial meeting Tuesday -- hosted by Denmark, Germany, European Union and United Nations -- is aimed at spotlighting one of world’s fastest growing humanitarian crises, so as to increase aid funding and put a stronger focus on solutions, Lowcock said.

“This is timely because things are deteriorating at an alarming rate,” he said. “Orwise problems will compound and re’ll be a lot of loss of life.”

According to U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which Lowcock hes, $1.4 billion humanitarian appeal for three countries is only 39% funded for 2020.

An estimated 7.4 million people are facing crisis levels of food insecurity during current lean season, three time more than a year ago, ncy said.

“That’s people who don’t kw how y will put food on table for ir family that day or next day, and who have got acute malnutrition problems in family,” Lowcock said in Thursday's interview.

Compared to aver of last five years, acute food insecurity has increased by a staggering 514% in Burkina Faso, 130% in Mali and 144% in Niger, his ncy said.

“What I hope is through this conference, for se three countries, we’ll get up to about a billion dollars for 2020,” Lowcock said. “That will certainly enable us to keep situation under control and contain worst difficulties. question n is, are we going to sustain that into 2021-2022?”

He said problems of central Sahel will take time to dress and one aim of Tuesday’s meeting is to “get recognition that wider world needs to eng for long term in this region” and that leers must be focused “on meeting needs of people and dealing with underlying problems.”

Lowcock said governments in Sahel need to assert control over ir territory, ting that “large areas are w under control of extremist groups.” But he stressed that this must be done in a way that doesn’t compound problem, saying re are “too many cases of military intervention being excessively violent, or t protecting people in this region at moment.”

Lowcock said Sahel is only region in world where all U.N. indicators of human development are getting worse.

He called for more girls to go to school and stay re, a reduction in infant and maternal mortality, and improvements in clean water availability.

Lowcock said re must also be a recognition that tritional livelihoods in Sahel -- subsistence agriculture and mic livestock grazing -- “will t support number of people re will be in region in deces ahe, t least because of climate change.” As an example, he pointed to evaporation of major environmental assets like Lake Ch, which is w a “shriveled puddle.”

More than 100 countries have moved from largely subsistence-based rural agriculture ecomies over past few hundred years to ecomies developed in relation to cities, so re are models for Sahel countries to use in dealing with se problems, “but at moment, y’re t being taken up in an effective way,” he said.

Lowcock said he fears that in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger as well as three or Sahel countries — Cameroon, Ch and rast Nigeria — re is a risk of “a tipping point” where “it starts to get dramatically more difficult to deal with underlying causes.”

“It’s a bit like a swball rolling down hill,” he said, pointing to a twentyfold increase in number of displaced people between 2018 and 2020 from 70,000 to 1.5 million in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger while his year has seen worst floods ever recorded in region and highest number of people in need of humanitarian assistance.

He also ted re has been a record level of attacks on aid workers this year and extremist groups have expanded ir areas of operation. re must be a recognition that extremist groups have an nda that “is inimical to interests or livelihoods of ordinary people in places y control,” he said.

“se are t problems that can be solved in short term, but until you face up to m, recognize what you’re dealing with, and start talking about what solutions can be, obviously you’re t making any progress,” Lowcock said. “So you don’t get to choose where you have to start journey, but you do have to take first steps.”