Sahel Emergency Food Appeal

Thank you for helping people in need in the Sahel!

Click here to go to our secure online donation page to make your donation.

After a failed harvest in 2011 throughout much of West Africa's Sahel region, 18 million people were at risk of hunger.

The Foodgrains Bank responded to this crisis through its member agencies and their partners.

Together, $10 million was committed to projects in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. These projects reached over 288,000 people in need.

Our assistance in the Sahel was provided through Foodgrains Bank members Christian and Missionary Alliance, ADRA Canada, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, Mennonite Central Committee and World Relief Canada. Presbyterian World Service and Development and The United Church of Canada are also providing funding for these projects.

These responses have been made possible with support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Donations made through the Foodgrains Bank for the Sahel between August 7 and September 30 were matched by the Canadian International Development Agency through its Sahel Crisis Matching Fund. To learn more about how this match works, click here.

Click here for a short video about the Sahel.

Click here for a one-page fact sheet about the food crisis in the Sahel.

Click here to see images from Niger.

Click here for a Sahel Emergency Food Appeal poster to print and post in your church or community (8.5 x 14 or legal size).

Click here for a map that shows where people are food insecure.

A Note from Jim Cornelius, Executive Director

When I visited the Sahel region in May, I saw that grain bins were already empty—people had used up the little they were able to grow. Until the next harvest in fall, they will need help to survive.

For this response, we need your help. I invite you to help people like Yapoa Lale, a mother of four in the village of Tamfahou, Niger. When I visited Yapoa, I asked her how much food she had. “The storage is finished, there is nothing left,” she said.

I asked how the lack of food was affecting her. “Hunger is the biggest sickness you can have,” she told me, pointing at her body. “My body is not supposed to look like this.”

When I asked how her children were doing, she lifted up her shirt to show her small breasts that her baby daughter, Martine, was trying to nurse from. “She sucks, but there is no milk,” she said.

Another villager, David Dale, explained that the rains started very late, then stopped before the millet was ready to give grain. “Many animals have already died,” he said. “If the situation persists, we are going to die.”

Fortunately, people like Yapoa and David are receiving help through the Foodgrains Bank. Many more are living close to the margin; your gift this summer will help keep them from falling over the edge.

Thanks for considering this opportunity to help people in the Sahel! After my visit to the region, I have little doubt that our response is essential. Many of the people I met faced drought only two years earlier, and now have to deal with this crisis. Talking to them, I saw the effects of deep and grinding poverty, and the impoverishing effect of repeated shocks. The food we are providing will not only help meet their immediate food needs, but also helps stop them from sliding into deeper impoverishment in the future. Click here to go to our secure online donation page to make your donation.

Thanks again for your ongoing support.

- Jim Cornelius, Executive Director

Image above: Jim talks with Marianna and her daughter, Anabus (aged two), in the Madaoua region of Niger. Anabus has struggled with with malnutrition.