Africa Famine Strategy Criticized

Report Says To Help Hungry, Trade And Aid Policies Must Change

(CBS/AP)  "There are, I think, dozens of children dying every day under the age of five," says Jean Zeigler of the United Nations. "There are many, many hundreds of thousands of victims; nobody knows where they are dying, because it is so immense."

Officials estimate that there are some 800,000 children in Niger who need food urgently.

Every third infant there is underfed.

The crisis has come from drought and crop failure, and a call for help that went unheeded. Niger's government began sounding alarms last November. The World Food Program pleaded for donors. Now, officials say delay has cost lives, and pushed up the cost of saving more, because aid now must come by air.

Adopting a pessimistic scenario, which factors in the effects of HIV/AIDS and the declining foreign investment in African countries, the institute predicted that the number of malnourished children in sub-Saharan Africa would rise to 55.1 million.

Researchers said the only way to meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goals of cutting the number of hungry in half by 2015 would be through reforming trade policies, significant financial investments, increased agricultural research and extension services, as well as better crop, land and water management.

Full trade liberalization alone could inject an additional $4.5 billion a year into the Africa's economy, Rosegrant said.

Ensuring the empowerment of women should also be a priority, he added.

"Women account for 70 percent to 80 percent of household food production and targeting programs that help women helps in poverty reduction," Rosegrant said.