Second meeting on food security in the Sahel begins in Ouagadougou

(Dakar/Ouagadougou, 15 March 2006): The United Nations (UN), under the aegis of the CILSS (Comité Permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel) is holding the second regional consultative meeting on food security in the Sahel on 15 and 16 March in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
The meeting will elaborate an action plan for the Sahel that aims to reinforce state capacities in fighting food insecurity. The plan will also tackle structural causes of food and nutritional crises that regularly occur in Sahelian countries.

"How many more precious lives will hunger carry off before we finally decide to do all we can and unite to meet the challenges that nature and poverty put before us?" said Hervé de Lys, head of the regional Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for West Africa.

The meeting in Ouagadougou follows the first regional meeting on food security that took place in Dakar, Senegal, in mid-November 2005, which was initiated by the Untied Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and OCHA in collaboration with the CILSS. At the end of the Dakar consultation, participants decided that an action plan must be elaborated and that it should include medium and long-term measures taking into consideration structural causes that aggravate food insecurity.

Besides the CILSS, UNDP and OCHA, regional organisations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), representatives from organizations dealing with international cooperation, including from France, Germany, Italy, European Union, United States, and others, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), members of civil society, as well as UN specialized organisations (such as the World Food programme [WFP] and the Food and Agricultural Organisation [FAO]) are also taking part in the meeting. Representatives from the nine CILSS member states (Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Chad) as well as from Ghana and Nigeria, two coastal countries sharing large borders with respectively Burkina Faso and Niger, are also participating in Ouagadougou meeting.

Contacts: OCHA, Ouagadougou : Félix Alexandre Sanfo, portable : +226 78 83 44 70 ; OCHA, Dakar : Maya Siblini : +221 867 27 50/57 ; Katy Thiam : +221 867 27 50/54 ; OCHA, Genève : Elizabeth Byrs :+41 22 917 26 53 ; OCHA, New York : Stephanie Bunker, Kristen Knutson : +1917 367 51 26