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STORY: UN / SAHEL
TRT: 2.33
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 11 JUNE 2013, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
11 JUNE 2013, NEW YORK CITY
2. Med shot, dais
3. Med shot, journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert Piper, UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel:
“Despite much better rains in 2012, coming into 2013, despite better harvest projections for many countries in the region, we have multiple crises once again this year. Mali you are following very closely, is very well acknowledged, is reeling from a double crisis; the man made crisis, the conflict that is waging there, that has displaced more people, created more refugees. But also of course, Mali itself reeling from the aftermath of last year’s drought and dealing with very high food insecurity problems as well.”
5. Med shot, journalist
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert Piper, UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel:
“The problems of the region are much larger than Mali. Mali is having a tremendous spill over effect needless to say. But even without Mali and its own problems, a country like Chad with its refugee caseload, with its own food insecurity, and nutrition crisis is requiring a huge amount of support. We have a 1.7 billion dollar appeal for the region as a whole with only 36 percent funding; a large caseload of food insecure people, a large caseload of malnourished children, and the threat in the coming months of flooding and other crises in the region. ”
7. Med shot, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert Piper, UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel:
“And as crises become more frequent we are seeing families in the Sahel adapt these very negative coping mechanisms. Negative coping mechanisms in the sense that they make decisions with irreversible consequences, and again you know, make them more likely to require humanitarian assistance next year. Taking their daughters out of school, maybe eating their livestock which was supposed to be saved for reproductive purposes, or eating the seeds that they saving for another day, or taking on debts that are too difficult to carry. We are seeing an extraordinary vulnerable group of people in the millions who are sinking further and further below a minimum line.”
9. Med shot, journalists
10. Med shot, end of press conference
A senior United Nations humanitarian official today (11 June) appealed for urgent support to tackle the ongoing food and nutritional crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa and respond to the needs of 11.4 million people facing food insecurity.
Robert Piper, UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, told a news conference in New York that “despite much better rains in 2012, coming into 2013, despite better harvest projections for many countries in the region, we have multiple crises once again this year” in the region.
Piper said Mali is “reeling from a double crisis” of conflict and the aftermath of last year’s drought, causing “very high food insecurity problems as well.”
In Mali, about half a million people are food insecure and more than 4.3 million people are in need of humanitarian aid after fighting broke out in January 2012 between Government forces and Tuareg rebels. The conflict uprooted thousands of people and prompted the Malian Government to request assistance from France to stop the military advance of extremist groups.
Piper said “the problems of the region are much larger than Mali” and “even without Mali and its own problems, a country like Chad with its refugee caseload, with its own food insecurity, and nutrition crisis is requiring a huge amount of support.”
He said, “As crises become more frequent we are seeing families in the Sahel adapt these very negative coping mechanisms.”
These negative coping mechanisms include “taking their daughters out of school, maybe eating their livestock which was supposed to be saved for reproductive purposes, or eating the seeds that they saving for another day, or taking on debts that are too difficult to carry.”
Piper said, “We are seeing an extraordinary vulnerable group of people in the millions who are sinking further and further below a minimum line.”
The Sahel region consists of Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Gambia, and Nigeria. The humanitarian community has appealed for $1.7 billion to help millions in need this year in the region, which is still reeling from the crisis that affected some 18 million people in 2012. This year’s appeal is only 36 per cent funded.
