WFP intervenes with "cereal banks" to contain Senegal food crisis
Although not on the scale as Niger, Chad or Mali, Senegal has not escaped the food crisis hitting the Sahel region of West and Central Africa, with some 800,000 people threatened by serious food insecurity.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is trying to help find solution to the problem by stocking what it calls, cereal banks around the country. UN officials say the food shortage is being accompanied by rise in cases of malnutrition.
Cereal banks were first launched in WFP programs in 2009 to 2011 in Senegal and the number has increased from 17-379. So far, the UN food agency says over 37,000 have benefitted in six of the country’s 14 regions.
Through the cereal banks, hundreds of families that were facing food crisis in the village of Nete Boulou , about five hundred kilometers East of Senegal’s capital, Dakar, are being saved from hunger, after receiving bags of cereal this week.
This town is just one of the 100 in Senegal that WFP has assessed as being affected by food insecurity.
While travelling with a WFP team to that area this week, WADR’s Kara Thioune spoke with Ingebord Maria, the Country Coordinator of WFP in Senegal about the scale of the current food problem.
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