Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maïga gave the assurance of this during the 19th session of the National Food Security Council which he chaired yesterday at the Primature. To this end, more than 30,000 tons of cereals will be mobilized
The meeting was held in the premises of the Primature in the presence of members of the government and representatives of technical and financial partners. Speaking on behalf of the technical and financial partners, Bart Ouvry, the head of the European Union (EU) delegation, indicated that the situation in 2023 shows improvements compared to last year. Indeed, according to the provisional results of the Harmonized Framework, the projected situation in June 2023 counts 1.2 million people in food crisis against 1.8 million last year in the areas of Ménaka, Ansongo, Gao, Gourma Rharous and Douentza. In addition, there are 4 million people who are at food risk. In 2022, they numbered 4.4 million.
As for cereal production, according to the results of the National Survey on Food and Nutritional Security (Ensan), it is on average good, as are the pastoral and fishing conditions, despite pockets of vulnerability due to the insecurity that manifests itself in the territory. Cereal availability on the market is good but prices, lower than last year, remain high. As for the price of livestock, it remains stable. The number of internally displaced persons remains stable compared to last year, at 400,000 people.
According to Bart Ouvry, more than 20 billion CFA francs have been invested through state mechanisms to respond to the crisis. “We encourage the Food Security Commission to continue the efforts. And we notice, at the operational level, a better use of communication down to the local level and the empowerment of local committees which have enabled better appropriation and better governance of the assistance”, indicated the head of the delegation of the EU. To this must be added the introduction of more processed cereals to better adapt to the eating habits of the regions concerned.
In terms of challenges, Bart Ouvry will explain that there is a need to use the planning, monitoring and evaluation tools made available to the National Food Security Mechanism in order to strengthen cooperation with partners, make National response plan an even more adaptive and scalable response tool allowing actors to take into account any type of crisis.
DIFFICULT CONTEXT- Taking the floor, the Prime Minister recalled that this session is being held in a very difficult food and nutritional context for many of our fellow citizens who find themselves in areas of precariousness and insecurity, despite the immense efforts made by the government, both for the safety of people and their property and in the more specific area of food and nutritional security. He pointed out that economic sanctions by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) continue to negatively affect the country’s overall economy.
For Dr. Choguel Kokalla Maïga, the National Response Plan (PNR) 2023 will attempt to provide mitigation solutions for more than 3 million people, while ensuring consistency between the joint actions of the State and those of partners in the food security sub-group.
In addition, the Head of Government will say that according to the provisional assessment of the Early Warning System through the Harmonized Framework, 1.2 million people are in need of food and nutritional assistance in our country. And more than 4 million people are in moderate food insecurity and need to be supported for the restoration of their productive capital, from support activities in the fields of agriculture, market gardening, farming, fishing, aquaculture and other income-generating activities.
This very large number of people with food and nutritional difficulties will mobilize technical and financial resources to match the exceptional volume of responses for the year 2023. According to Dr Choguel Kokalla Maïga, the State will therefore have to provide food assistance of 30,010 tonnes of cereals to 1.2 million vulnerable people; make occasional emergency distributions of 2,000 tonnes of cereals; to carry out intervention sales of 15,000 tons of cereals and to strengthen livelihoods and the capacity for resilience by setting up demonstration shops in certain communes of the District of Bamako.
The partners propose to further improve the coherence of the interventions of the various actors by generalizing the use of the unified social register, a national database which will allow appropriate targeting of beneficiaries and better coordination of interventions.
Oumar SANKARE
Source: Growth