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Singing for Joy in Kenya Starving in the Horn of Africa The Story of Geoffrey

MALI: Aid gets into gear, but must navigate no-go zones
DAKAR 15 February 2012 (IRIN) - Aid workers are facing a trio of challenges in northern Mali: extensive drought-induced food insecurity and pasture shortages; conflict between Tuaregs and the Malian army; and the resulting displacement of thousands more Tuaregs, say aid agencies on the ground.
SOUTH SUDAN: Briefing – life without oil
JUBA 14 February 2012 (IRIN) - South Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world, reliant on oil for 98 percent of its revenues, in January took the drastic step of halting crude production, as a row with former civil war foe Sudan over transit fees hit a deadlock.
Analysis: Towards a pro-poor maize policy in Kenya
NAIROBI 14 February 2012 (IRIN) - Almost all Kenyans eat maize - an average of almost 100kg each a year - but they pay a lot more for the staple than many of their regional neighbours. The poorest Kenyans now spend over a quarter of their income on the cereal.
SENEGAL: Drought response slowed by election fever
DAKAR 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - While it is clear that Senegal was one of the eight Sahelian countries to be hit by poor rains in 2011, unlike most of its neighbours, the government has not yet declared that parts of certain regions are suffering drought conditions. This low-profile approach is slowing down donor and aid agencies’ preparations and responses to help pastoralists and farmers get through the lean season.
SECURITY: New report on R2P challenges humanitarians
LONDON 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - The UN recognizes the international community’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) civilians during conflict, and this philosophy has quickly become embedded in peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions, but a new report questions some basic humanitarian assumptions.
ZIMBABWE: Deportations rob vulnerable of remittances
HARARE 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - Thousands of Zimbabwean households are feeling the effects of lost remittances from family members forcibly returned from neighbouring South Africa since that country resumed deportations of undocumented Zimbabwean migrants in October 2011.
NIGERIA: Bayelsa State to speed up aid for oil-spill victims
WARRI 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - Nigeria’s Bayelsa State government said yesterday it would speed up the release of money over the next two weeks to help hundreds of thousands of villagers affected by a Chevron off-shore oil spill in January.
SOUTH SUDAN: Briefing on Jonglei violence
JUBA 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - Several clashes involving thousands of combatants in South Sudan's Jonglei state have highlighted the volatility of the world's newest country, affecting some 140,000 people. A major new offensive has been announced to start in early March.
HORN: Poor rains again this season?*
JOHANNESBURG 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - The climatic conditions linked to the drought in the Horn in 2011 have persisted, and some early warning officials say the aid community should brace themselves for a possible re-run of last year's food crisis.
MALAWI: Rising prices and looming maize shortages
LILONGWE/JOHANNESBURG 09 February 2012 (IRIN) - Malawi’s maize-growing central and southern regions have not had good rains, prompting concerns about possible shortages of the staple in the coming months.
SAHEL: Donors learning funding lessons - slowly
DAKAR 06 February 2012 (IRIN) - This year donors are stepping up more quickly to meet Sahel’s humanitarian needs compared to 2010, when they were slow to respond. However, they are still at fault for taking a quick-fix approach rather than addressing long-term disaster prevention and resilience needs, say aid groups.
SAHEL: Displaced Malians burden food-insecure hosts
BAMAKO/DAKAR 06 February 2012 (IRIN) - Some 12,000 Malians have fled fighting in the towns of Ménaka and Anderamboucane in northern Mali and reached already food-insecure villages around Tillabéri in western Niger, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Niger’s capital, Niamey.
NIGERIA: Never so divided, never so united
LAGOS 03 February 2012 (IRIN) - A month after an angry public launched protests across Nigeria over skyrocketing fuel prices due to the removal of a government subsidy, a measure of calm has returned and people seem to have settled into accepting a compromise.
MADAGASCAR: The “less is more” philosophy of rice production
TALATA 31 January 2012 (IRIN) - Ernest Rakotoarivony, 45, was teased by some members of the Talata community, a small town 30km north of Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo, after breaking with traditional rice cultivation methods and employing a technique taught to him by a Jesuit priest.
Analysis: Where Afghan humanitarianism ends and development begins
KABUL 30 January 2012 (IRIN) - Afghanistan suffers from cyclical natural disasters - floods and drought - which affect people annually and require expensive emergency responses, but their impacts could well be avoided, or at least mitigated, if proper water management systems or dams were built, for example.
In Brief: Mozambique storms’ death toll rises to 40
JOHANNESBURG 30 January 2012 (IRIN) - About 40 people have died and more than 100,000 are affected by twin storms that struck Mozambique 18-26 January, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
AFGHANISTAN: Time running out for displaced farmers
MAZAR-I-SHARIF 27 January 2012 (IRIN) - Much of Dawood Boy’s village in northern Afghanistan is empty. More than 1,000 families from Alburz in Balkh Province abandoned it 4-6 months ago after a drought affecting nearly half the country left 2.8 million people in need of food assistance, according to the World Food Programme.
BURUNDI: Fears of looming food shortage
BUJUMBURA 27 January 2012 (IRIN) - There are fears of a looming food shortage in Burundi after heavy rains damaged two successive harvests, say officials.
SLIDESHOW: Living on the edge in Kenya's Turkana region
NAIROBI 27 January 2012 (IRIN) - The 850,000 residents of northwestern Kenya's vast and parched Turkana region face some of the most inhospitable living conditions on Earth.
OPT: Boosting protection and tackling food insecurity
RAMALLAH 27 January 2012 (IRIN) - The humanitarian community’s 2012-2013 Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) for the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has a narrower scope than in previous years, focusing on two strategic objectives: improving the protective environment, including access to essential services like health care and education, and tackling food insecurity especially in areas where the Palestinian Authority (PA) has limited access.
Analysis: Coping with climate change
JOHANNESBURG 25 January 2012 (IRIN) - In the past five years, “resilience” (the ability to absorb shocks and recover) has become quite a buzzword in the aid community. Discussions on adapting to a changing climate are increasingly peppered with the “need to build resilience” of people, infrastructure and governments in the face of shocks such as soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, severe storms and flooding.
COTE D'IVOIRE: Authorities move to curb illegal gold-mining
TENGRELA 25 January 2012 (IRIN) - Local authorities across eight out of 81 districts in northern Côte d’Ivoire have announced they are banning artisanal gold-mining in a bid to try to regulate the informal industry, and stop the encroachment of gold-miners on precious farmland.
Analysis: Agriculture in a changing environment
JOHANNESBURG 24 January 2012 (IRIN) - Agriculture has been seen either as a cause or victim of global warming at the UN climate change talks over the past few years - something that has thwarted efforts to attract the investment it needs, say scientists.
NIGER: Thousands of villages hit by severe food shortages
NIAMEY 24 January 2012 (IRIN) - Nearly half Niger’s population does not have enough to eat and the government says it is facing a grain shortfall of 692,501 tons, following another severe drought across the Sahel.
SRI LANKA: Tea rich but nutrient poor
COLOMBO 20 January 2012 (IRIN) - Tea in Sri Lanka is one of the country's biggest cash crops, but families working on tea estates are among the nation's poorest in terms of earnings as well as nutrition, say experts who back regional approaches to tackle nutrition disparity.