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Lutheran World Relief
LONDON, U K (Reuters AlertNet) - Lutheran World Relief (LWR), through a generous $599,642 grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) is expanding its response to the food crisis in Niger.
The country is no stranger to food shortages. Periods of drought, unstable rains, decreased agricultural production and rising food costs threatened families in 2005, 2008, 2010 and now in 2012 as large sections of the West African Sahel also struggle to cope with these and other factors. More than 13 million people in the Sahel are now at risk of hunger.
LWR’s Resilience Plus response in Niger is aimed at helping families weather Niger’s latest food emergency and lay the groundwork for greater food and nutrition security in the future.
“LWR is grateful for this award and excited to extend our successful work in Niger to tens of thousands of other people in need of help,” says LWR president and CEO, John Nunes.
LWR has responded to past crises in Niger through a cash-for-work approach that gives farmers the opportunity to earn income to feed their families now while making critical repairs and improvements to soil, irrigation systems and other structures that help them recover and improve their agricultural livelihoods in the future. LWR has seen great success with this approach in the past and through this grant will extend that work to 64,800 people living in previously underserved areas.
In addition to cash-for-work programs aimed at preserving soil and water systems, Resilience Plus will help families work toward recovery by providing seeds and other agricultural inputs needed to replant crops.
“Farmers are in great need of help,” says Evariste Karangwa, LWR’s Regional Director for Africa programs. “During last year’s cropping season, households reported consuming immature millet grains to meet immediate food needs. In addition, food scarcity often forces the poorest families to sell their assets including seeds and use any proceeds as a temporary coping strategy.”
Lutheran World Relief is also carrying out its Resilience Plus response in Burkina Faso and Mali, where it is also implementing cash-for-work activities and also working with women farmers, especially vulnerable in times food crisis, to improve their agricultural livelihoods.
“Through a sustainable development approach, LWR is committed to working with rural communities in Niger to help them become stronger and better prepared to face the future,” says Nunes.
Since 1961, the United States Agency for International Development has been the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms. The Agency carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad.
To learn more about LWR’s response to the food crisis in the Sahel, please visit lwr.org.
WHO IS LWR? Lutheran World Relief, an international nonprofit organization, works to end poverty and injustice by empowering some of the world's most impoverished communities to help themselves. With partners in 35 countries, LWR seeks to promote sustainable development with justice and dignity by helping communities bring about change for healthy, safe and secure lives; engage in Fair Trade; promote peace and reconciliation; and respond to emergencies. LWR is headquartered in Baltimore, Md. and has worked in international development and relief since 1945. For more information, please visit lwr.org.
Copyright 2013 Reuters AlertNet
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Updated 291 days ago Article ID# 1705592
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