UN and Africa

Programme Number: 062
Week of: Sunday, 21st August, 2005
Recording Date: Thursday, 25th August, 2005


UN SECRETARY-GENERAL IN NIGER: UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan has visited Niger to see for himself the scale of the food crisis that has left more than 2.5 million people in urgent need of food aid. More than 30,000 severely malnourished children are also facing death. UN Radio's Carlos Araujo has been in Niger covering the food crisis and Mr Annan's visit.

COTE D'IVOIRE - THREAT OF A COUP PLOT : Former Ivorian military General Mathias Doue seem to be throwing the spanner into the political and diplomatic works aimed at taking Cote D'Ivoire to elections on the 30th October by threatening to launch a coup d'etat against the government of President Laurent Gbagbo. The UN Mission in Cote D'Ivoire has condemned the threat. The UN's top man designated to oversee the conduct of credible elections in Cote D'Ivoire, former Portuguese Foreign Minister, Antonio Monteiro, has just spent nearly two weeks in Cote D'Ivoire. We speak to him about the threat of further political instability and the clouds hanging over the elections.

Editor / Presenter: Ben Dotsei Malor
Production Assistant: Nyi Nyi Teza
Studio Engineer: Julio Martinich
Duration: 15'00"

PRESENTER: This is United Nations Radio from New York.

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PRESENTER:
Hello and welcome to UN and Africa. I'm Ben Dotsei Malor.

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PRESENTER:
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan visits Niger, to see for himself the scale of the food crisis that has left more than 2.5 million people in urgent need of food aid, and to help get more international assistance for one of the world's poorest countries.

CLIP-1: SG ANNAN
"What is important is for all of us to focus on providing emergency aid to those in need. What they need is immediate assistance and a short, medium and long-term approach to ensure that we'll not live through this again for other children, their younger brothers and sisters, to go through this."

PRESENTER:
In Cote D'Ivoire, a former general from the army threatens a coup d'etat. We ask the UN's top man responsible for free and fair elections in Cote D'Ivoire, former Portuguese Foreign Minister, Antonio Monteiro, about the clouds hanging over the October 30th elections?

CLIP2: AMBASSADOR MONTEIRO
"All of them want elections, in the shortest time possible. And this is something if it has to be translated into reality then we have to start working as soon as possible."

We've got all that coming your way in the next 15 minutes, here on UN and Africa. Stay tuned.

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FOOD CRISIS IN NIGER: UN SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN VISITS AFFECTED AREAS

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has just spent two days in Niger, where a very significant proportion of the 13 million population currently requires urgent food aid.

At a press conference at the end of his visit, Mr Annan, pledged the UN's readiness to help Niger find short-term and long-lasting solutions to the perennial problems of severe food shortages, drought, locust invasions and overall development.

The United Nations leader also addressed criticism that the UN has been slow in responding to the Niger crisis.
UN Radio's Carlos Araujo travelled with Mr Annan in Niger and provided us with the following material.

CUT 6: ACTUALITY FROM ZINDER

The UN Secretary-General started his visit in Niger's second-largest city, Zinder where he was welcomed by President Mamadou Tandja and a crowd of more than one thousand people.

CUT 6: ACTUALITY FROM ZINDER

Mr Annan visited a hospital feeding centre where he saw some of the severely malnourished children and spoke with their mothers.

CUT 5: SG SPEAKING IN FRENCH IN ZINDER

The Secretary-General spoke about the remarkable fortitude of mothers who have had to walk long distances to get food for their starving children.

The representative of the UN Children's Agency in Niger, Karimou Adjibade, who accompanied Mr Annan during some of his rounds to some of the affected places, says good practices have to be adopted to deal with the long-terms effects of food crisis on children in particul

CUT 1: UNICEF'S ADJIBADE
"To be honest the situation of the children is very very bad, because this food crisis comes on top of the situation of acute malnutrition which is a structural problem in Niger.

The problem mainly is a question of access to food for the majority of the children. This food crisis derives from the food shortage of last year, combined with the locust infestation and the drought. However, the magnitude of that shortage of these crops cannot justify the magnitude of the malnutrition of the children that we're witnessing - all of us. That is the reason why I would say that we have to do something to change completely that situation. And that should start first of all with behaviour changes.

Mothers are illiterate. They don't know the good practices for the nutrition of their children. They should, at least, at the beginning of the life of the baby, have good practices for breastfeeding. Do you know that the rate of breastfeeding is very low in Niger? It's less than 10 per cent and that is not acceptable. On top of that hygiene and sanitation are very weak, combined with all these childhood diseases that aggravate the general welfare of the children."

The presence and the work of UNICEF and other UN agencies in Niger have however come under criticism from some other international non-governmental organisations. Here's Johanna Mekennes, the Chief of Mission of the French NGO Medicins Sans Frontieres in Niger.

CUT 2: MSF CRITICISM
"Well, the response from the international community and the United Nations has come very late - we're all aware of this. Today, the response is coming in just before the harvest, for example. Today the response of the free distribution has barely started just before the next harvest. Now it is very late, even too late for some of the children. The response of giving the free food distribution today, as we see it does not really cover the areas most in need."

This delay by the international community in taking action is also echoed by Langdon Greenlaigh of the International Federation of the Red Cross.

CUT 7: ICRC

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has tried to side-step the controversy and criticism and sought to rally focus on the crisis and on the people in urgent need of assistance.

CUT 4: SG RESPONDS
"I think this is an unfortunate debate. What is important is for us to focus on providing emergency aid to those who need it. For those who are hungry and need food, this debate that we are having is totally irrelevant. What they need is immediate assistance and short, medium and long term approach to ensure we will not live through this again for other children, or for their younger brothers and sisters.
Yes, the response has been slow. The appeal was made last year and I think World Food Programme did a study in January and made a report in April indicating that the situation […,] warning of the crisis and the appeals went out. And even now, as I speak, despite the images on television, we have received 50% of the appeal we made.

But that being the case, we are on the ground, acting actively to assist. I was in Zinder yesterday to see the hospital and I went to Madara also to see what was happening there. I got very good briefings from the UN agencies: UNDP, World Food Programme, UNICEF, UNFPA and the others who are all working together, with the NGOs and the government. We need to work together, to pool our efforts to make a difference where it counts: in the lives of the real people who need us. The debate and the discussion: who did what and whether it was on time, we'll have lots time once we've saved the people to discuss it. Historians and political scientists will have lots of time to study it. But for the moment, let's focus on what is needed."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In Niamey, our UN Radio colleague Carlos Araujo spoke with YVON EDOUMOU of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, and asked him first what impact Mr Kofi Annan's visit could have on the crisis in Niger?

CUT 3: YVON EDOUMOU OF OCHA
"First will be to keep the Niger food crisis in the spotlight in the media to ensure that this crisis doesn't become another forgotten crisis.

The visit is also an appeal to the donor community, to the international community to continue to fund the Niger appeal that we launched several weeks ago, which so far has collected $40 million out of a possible $80 million. So, there is still 50 per cent gap to be filled. And we hope that this high-profile visit by the UN Secretary-General will entice more people, more countries and more governments to finance this crisis.

The visit is also to map out short-term and long-time strategies. The UN Secretary-General wants to see for himself what's the situation on the ground. He wants to give support to the UN agencies and the NGOs who are working in the country, so that in the short term, children and women in need of food receive the food and also start to work with the actors here on the ground and the government towards long-term solutions, so that in three to five years time, we don't come back to the same emergency."

That was YVON EDOUMOU of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, speaking to our UN Radio colleague, Carlos Araujo, in Niger.

STING/JINGLE: UN AND AFRICA THEME

COTE D'IVOIRE: COUP THREAT AND CLOUDS HANG OVER ELECTIONS

Cote D'Ivoire tortuous journey out of conflict to peace and democratic elections took another jolt over the past few days when a former army general announced that he would depose President Laurent Gbagbo.

Former General Mathias Doue said he would take action if the international community failed to remove President Gbagbo.

The threat and other problems in Cote D'Ivoire continue to generate huge clouds and doubts over the elections scheduled for the 30th October.

The UN Mission in Cote D'Ivoire has condemned the coup threat.

And the UN's top man designated to oversee the conduct of credible elections in Cote D'Ivoire, former Portuguese Foreign Minister, Antonio Monteiro, has also been expressing his own concerns. He has just spent nearly two weeks in Cote D'Ivoire. And he was here in New York … I asked him first what he made of the coup threat?

INTERVIEW WITH MR MONTEIRO

"I cannot see when there is a perspective of a peaceful of way solving a situation why we're talking about war? Something is wrong here and I don't understand. …. How can anyone think that [they can] have popular support now in Cote D'ivoire in support of war … because the international community has lots of conflicts to deal with. And how can you expect the international community to be committed in a country if there are all the time the logic of war prevailing over the logic of peace … because there is a real hope for the people and this hope are the elections that will allow all the Ivorians to express their wish and their real contribution to the future of the country to determine what they want really.

You've just spent nearly two weeks in Cote D'ivoire, assessing the issues connected with the elections that are planned for the 30th of October. What, in summary, did you find out when you visited Cote D'Ivoire?

To be brief, I must say that I detected some problems, really deadlocks in all this process. Then my idea was to meet all the main actors, the government the officials the belligerents too and the Forces Nouvelles. And I must tell that at the end of all these meetings I had a positive outlook.

What were the problems?

Let say security and what is called DDR … problems about the constitution, the Independent Electoral Commission

"Problems about the legislation that has to be used to ensure we have credible elections We're talking about laws that enable some people to have some citizenship and qualify to vote in election?

This is the core of the question, after as I told the meeting, the several main actors the mediation because I went to pictorial to meet President ..., I can say that we reached the agreement and now we have general bases agreement both on the rules that will be apply on the role and composition, authority and after independent electoral commission. And what I have asked all party to appoint to representatives to commission, all of them agreed, and very much hope that until end of this month all the party will have indicated that they representatives to independent electoral commission, in a way that we can start work in beginning of September.

What's give you confidence, what's give you optimisms that the agreement that you have reached regarding electoral process in Cote D'Ivoire by the all the faction leaders all the politician leaders would be implemented.

You know, I have to trust the words and good face of my inter… a part of this process has to base interest, there are a lot's of political problem, but what I am telling people, that when only be around the table working together we can identifies the problems and try to solve them. All of them want elections and shortest possible. And this is some things if we have to translates in to reality then we have to start working as soon as possible, that what I underline to them. I don't like to use word optimist, I would like to realistic on this, and we have to always have in mind that Cote D'Ivoire is the country with arms conflict which is very dangerous, and I am always aware of that, but I believe to that by now everybody convince that only election can constitute away of escaping a logic war."

We've been listening there to The UN's top man designated to oversee the conduct of credible elections in Cote D'Ivoire, former Portuguese Foreign Minister, Antonio Monteiro.

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And that brings us to the end of this edition of UN and Africa.

I'm Ben Dotsei Malor, with Nyi Nyi Teza, and Julio Martinich.

Thank you for listening and Goodbye.

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