Hunger is a Worldwide Problem for Children

More than 18 million people in West Africa suffer from hunger.  Crop shortages, rising food costs and     
                                          insecurity have left more than 1 million children starving. 


       The Sahel is an arid, impoverished region on the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert. And it is in the Sahel where one million children live on the fringe of survival due to a food shortage that threatens many with severe acute malnutrition.  Water shortages are adding to the misery for children and families in northern Mali.
         Children are always the most vulnerable in any emergency. The hunger crisis in countries that comprise the Sahel - Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Chad - are no exception. Vast numbers of families already are unable to provide their children with enough food because of extreme poverty, skyrocketing food prices, violence and droughts. The sustained nature of these problems has made it all the harder for families to bounce back when a crisis is over. 
         Even absent the current crisis, children in the Sahel already face some of the world’s worst under-5 mortality rates.In Niger, where more than half of children do not attend school at all, there are reports that children are leaving classrooms to help their families earn incomes, which may expose them to exploitation. And, as children eat less, and eat less nutritious foods, they can become malnourished and at risk of debilitating diseases that can quickly kill if not treated. 

        We live in a world where we know how to prevent extreme hunger, yet people still die from a lack of food. 2011 saw the worst hunger crisis this century in the Horn of Africa. More than 13 million people, most of them women and children, have been affected. Lives and livelihoods have been devastated, pushing people into poverty that could cause them suffering for years to come.  This certainly has lasting effects on children as well as their physical and cognitive development.

http://www.savethechildren.org/site/