The United Nations announced on Monday their goal to raise $2 billion from donors across the world to aid the millions of people suffering from hunger in Africa's Sahel region, GlobalPost.com reported.
"More people than ever are at risk in the Sahel and the scale of their needs is so great that no agency or organization can tackle it alone," U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos said at a meeting in Rome.
The U.N. released a statement from Italy, where their food and agriculture agencies are headquartered, detailing the 20 million people that "are currently at risk of food insecurity in the Sahel" while 2.5 million "need urgent lifesaving food assistance."
Officials said their goal of $2 billion would help curb hunger crises in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. They also warned of the violence that "has forced 1.2 million people to flee their homes creating protracted internal displacement and a refugee crisis."
Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the Food and Agrictulre Organization (FAO), offered insight into how the funds will assist the people in need.
"Our first priority is to ensure that farmers in the Sahel have a successful planting season in the coming weeks, providing them urgently with agricultural inputs," da Silva said.
"Our responsibility is also to make sure that the next drought will not lead to another major humanitarian crisis... by producing quality seed varieties, rehabilitating degraded agricultural land, conserving rainwater and supporting small-scale irrigation."
Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, said the European Commission will offer 142 million euros in aid but claimed "more contributions from international donors are needed as soon as possible to meet the basic needs of the people in the Sahel."
