Lake Chad’s twofold crisis requires a lasting solution
This article is part of the Food Sustainability Index, a global study on nutrition, agriculture and food waste. The study was developed by The Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition.
A lasting solution to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad Basin needs to include significant investments in agriculture and climate-change relief, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which describes the situation also as an ecological crisis.
Although amplified by continued violence from Boko Haram, an Islamist insurgency group, the crisis is underpinned by decades of neglect, a lack of rural development and the impact of climate change.
Moreover, rapid population growth, coupled with serious underinvestment in social services, has impeded efforts to tackle these deep-rooted problems. Altogether, food security is quickly deteriorating for some 7m people across the Basin, which covers north-eastern Nigeria, northern Cameroon, western Chad and south-east Niger. The number of those requiring assistance is predicted to grow to approximately 11m people in 2017, prompting calls from the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for US$1.5bn in financial assistance — more than double its request for US$739m in 2016.
A steady drop
Hefty investment in sustainable agricultural methods and various means to combat climate change are emphasised as necessary to the health of the planet in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Food Sustainability Index (FSI), which it developed together with the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition. The term “sustainability” in the FSI refers to the ability of the food system to be maintained without depletion and exhaustion of its natural resources or compromises to its health and integrity. This contrasts distinctly with the current ecological condition of the Lake Chad Basin.
A review of the Basin by the World Food Programme highlights that even before Boko Haram’s violent campaign environmental challenges and scrappy ecosystem management already presented a major threat to food security and nutrition.
Formerly Africa’s largest water reservoir in the Sahel region covering approximately 26,000 sq km, Lake Chad has lost some 90% of its water mass since 1963, mainly as a result of climate change. Doron Baga, a town in north-eastern Nigeria that has suffered from numerous attacks by Boko Haram, was once situated by the lakeside but had already receded 20 km from the water’s edge by 2012. Competition for the lake’s water resources has also intensified owing to drought and desertification and, importantly, a huge surge in population levels. The multi-ethnic population of the Basin has grown from some 17m people in 2005 to the current total of approximately 38m.
The consequences of such trends have devastated the irrigation-based agricultural sector and the fisheries industry on which many rely entirely as a means of support. The current humanitarian response needs to take into account the Basin’s embedded weaknesses and devise a solution that goes further than short-term aid assistance.
Shockwaves in the water
Fixing Food, the white paper accompanying the FSI, maintains that the majority of food loss in emerging markets, such as the countries mentioned in this article, comes from a variety of sources, including infrastructure deficits and vulnerability to environmental shocks.
In developing countries such as Nigeria, the majority of food loss occurs before reaching the consumer. Poor road and transport systems, inadequate access to cool-chain technologies, unsatisfactory storage facilitates and vulnerability to shocks such as droughts are the main drivers of this trend. Reforms in these areas are possible, but in the case of Lake Chad years of feeble public policy regarding environmental regulation and regional development planning make it difficult. In the meantime, the adverse effects of environmental shocks continue to feed into the cycle of hunger and malnutrition.
Man and nature
Aside from a decline in environmental well-being, Lake Chad’s woes are also man-made. The rise in violent attacks by Boko Haram since 2015 from Nigeria to Cameroon, Niger and Chad has led to waning levels of economic development and increased levels of poverty.
A recent report by the German Federal Foreign Office and adelphi, an independent think-tank, explores how climate change, connected with fragility and conflict, can aid the rise of non-state armed groups such as Boko Haram.
Without stating a direct link between climate change and violence, it acknowledges that climate change is a factor in creating an environment in which the likes of Boko Haram can prosper and take advantage of a vulnerable population. The competition for land and water around Lake Chad is attributable to a very fragile environment. The scarcity of resources will continue to fuel social tensions in the Basin while subsequently curtailing the ability of its population to maintain a sustainable, healthy lifestyle. If Lake Chad continues to shrink at its current pace, it could completely disappear within the next 20 years.
However, the immediacy of the humanitarian situation is making the international community aware of the crisis. According to José Graziano da Silva, the director-general of the FAO, agriculture, including livestock and fishers, can no longer be an afterthought.
It is hoped that the FAO’s Response Strategy (2017–19) will alleviate the worst of the suffering in the short term, but the core issues of rural poverty and neglect still remain. The emergency situation in the Lake Chad Basin has been years in the making and will take years to undo.
Read more from this study at foodsustainability.eiu.com
