French press review 26 April 2012

The French presidential election has not magically vanished from the national front pages, but there is something far more important going on.

Le Monde carries a report from the French writer, Erik Orsenna, who is just back from a trip to Niger. Headlined "Alert across the Sahel", the article warns that 400,000 children face death from malnutrition in Niger alone, and that the whole southern Saharan zone, from Mauritania to Sudan, is on the brink of humanitarian disaster.

Niger was already a very poor place before the collapse of the Kadhafi regime in Libya put hundreds of dangerously well-armed mercenaries on the road, rebels without a cause. The same war put a stop to the money being sent home by Libya's 300,000 immigrant workers from Niger.

There's a rebellion to the north in Mali; another in the south-east around Lake Chad; not to mention the madness being promoted by Boko Haram in Nigeria to the south.

As Orsenna writes, "poor Niger, in the heart of the desert and, at the same time, in the eye of the cyclone."

As one aid worker points out, there are two aspects to malnutrition. There's the crisis situation, where youngsters risk death simply because they don't have enough proper food to eat. And there's the long-term situation, where the impact of childhood malnutrition is to be seen as the surviving child grows up. 50 per cent of Niger's under-fives do not have enough nutrition to allow normal development. That means that half of the next generation in Niger will suffer from either physical or cognitive disabilities, just when the country will have most need of a bright, active work force.

Poverty plays a roll, so does the changing regional rainfall pattern. But even on less than one dollar a day, ignorance and stupidity cause avoidable ravages. Most women in Niger are unaware, for example, that breast-feeding is the ideal way to ensure healthy babies in the first six months of life. Few mothers realise that a balanced diet is vital. And there are silly taboos, like the widespread belief that giving them eggs to eat turns children into thieves.

Niger has the world record birth rate at seven children per mother, mainly because of religion and male pride. But also because so many children die.

The crucial step forward will be the education of women, but that's not likely to become widespread today or tomorrow. Already there are cookery classes, aimed at helping mothers get the best out of what food is available. That's a start.

But when you realise that 'boko haram' roughly translates as "modern education is a sin" and that the education of women is the work of the devil himself, you have to wonder how long the dark night of Niger and its neighbours is going to last.

The contardictions are almost too blatant for words. Southern Niger, with sunlight and fertile rolling plains, could feed millions, if only the waters of the Niger River could be more widely used. But irrigation costs money. And so does the infrastructure needed to transport the food that is produced. Nearly one third of all crops rot after harvesting because they can't be delivered to market in time.

And in the midst of all this misery, Eric Orsenna is stunned by the sight of camels in the capital, Niamey, carrying giant sandwich boards proclaiming the merits of the French multi-national telephone operator, Orange. We can't build irrigation canals or roads, but telephone transmitters are no problem.

400,000 children in Niger are going to die of hunger, or have severely limited adult lives as a result of malnutrition. The problem is not military or islamic or terrorist. The problem is a lack of will to help by those who have the money but are more worried about their own diminished spending power and the local crisis, which is financial, not fatal.

The French presidential election was never that far away, after all.