37th CFS Plenary Session, 17-22 October 2011, Rome
The CFS is the United Nations' forum for reviewing policies concerning world food. It is the most inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all relevant stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition.
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Rome, 20 May 2011 – A US$8.95 million loan and a US$8.45 million grant from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to the Republic of Chad will help improve the livelihoods of poor rural people and increase economic growth potential in the country’s Guéra region, the UN rural poverty agency has announced.
The loan and grant agreement for the Rural Development Support Programme in Guéra was signed today in Rome by Hassan Elimi TchonaÏ, Ambassador of the Republic of Chad to the Federal Republic of Germany and Kanayo Nwanze, President of IFAD.
12 October 2010 – Nearly 1.5 million people have been affected by floods and 377 killed in Western and Central Africa, with Chad, Northern Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria facing a serious cholera epidemic, United Nations relief officials reported today.
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos is due to begin a four-day visit to Nigeria and Niger tomorrow to meet with relief organizations and local authorities as they battle the heavy flooding caused by torrential rains and exceptionally high water levels of the Niger and other rivers.
New Survey Shows 22 per cent of Children Suffer from Malnutrition in the Region
N’DJAMENA, CHAD 28 September 2010 – Usually considered a breadbasket for Chad, the region on the northern shore of Lake Chad is now affected by an extremely high malnutrition rate of children under five, almost 22 per cent, well beyond the emergency threshold.
"For years, we thought that with the lake, the region had many resources, food crops, corn, which explains the limited presence of aid workers here," said Dr. Roger Sodjinou, UNICEF chief of Nutrition. "In reality, the nutrition surveys we've just conducted show a catastrophic situation, confirming that the causes of malnutrition are not limited to the issue of food insecurity."
24 September 2010 – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is dramatically expanding its programme of assistance in Chad after a nutrition survey revealed that up to one quarter of children aged under five may be suffering acute malnutrition.
The survey, conducted by UNICEF with Chad’s health ministry, revealed acute malnutrition rates ranging from 15.2 to 24.9 per cent in six regions within the country’s Sahelian belt. The emergency threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO) is 15 per cent.
16 September 2010 – Although there are signs of improvement in Niger, which is in the midst of a severe food crisis, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned that child malnutrition rates are alarmingly high in neighbouring Chad.
“We’ve seen the positive impact of timely, well-coordinated food and nutrition assistance delivered in partnership with the Government in Niger,” where almost half of the 15-million strong population are hungry, said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran.
But in Chad, which experienced a long and crippling lean season, “children are weak and need to continue receiving food and nutritional support,” she stressed.
Weak and erratic rainfall across the eastern Sahel destroyed much of last year’s harvest, also drying up watering holes for cattle.
13 August 2010 – The United Nations refugee agency is delivering emergency assistance to thousands of flood victims in Chad, where entire villages have been destroyed and cultivated land ruined by the country’s heaviest rainfall in 40 years.
About 2,500 families have received blankets, bed mats and plastic sheeting so far, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Adrian Edwards told reporters today. The assistance is part of wider relief efforts involving the Chadian Government, other UN aid agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
29 July 2010 – A local variety of the nutrient-rich, blue-green algae known as spirulina could boost incomes for women in Chad who harvest the product as well as help fight nutrition, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported today.
The agency is running a $1.4 million project in which women are gathering and processing the product, known locally as dihé, from the shallow pools of water on the edges of Lake Chad where it forms at certain times of the year.
Launched in 2007, the project showed them how to do the job more efficiently and hygienically, and how to process, package and market the product, which is traditionally dried into a thin biscuit and later made into a bitter-tasting sauce.
16 July 2010 – United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes today allocated some $41 million in emergency funding to boost humanitarian operations in nine countries where people are suffering the effects of hunger, malnutrition, disease, and conflict.
The money from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) will help cover funding gaps in key humanitarian projects in Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Yemen, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Central African Republic (CAR), Djibouti, Eritrea, Republic of Congo and Nepal.
Humanitarian actors in Chad and the DRC received the largest individual portions of some $8 million apiece.
25 May 2010, Rome – Lack of funds is jeopardizing FAO emergency operations in Chad where two million people risk hunger after drought and pest infestations slashed food production, FAO said today.
According to FAO emergency operations expert Fatouma Seid FAO has only been able to mobilize $2.0 million of the $11.8 million it requested last November for agricultural emergency operations in the country as part of a UN inter-agency appeal. This compares with $14.5 million raised by FAO for neighbouring Niger, also hit by very serious food shortages.
The spike in food prices of last year (2008) underscored what experts have been telling us for many years: the world's food systems are in crisis