Since the month of May, we at Development and Peace have joined our voice with those of our sister agencies within the Caritas Internationalis confederation to sound the alarm on the situation in West Africa.
Today, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) announced their full support for this campaign, by appealing to all Canadian Catholics to show solidarity with the communities threatened by a major food crisis in the coming months. Caritas Internationalis and our sister agencies on site report that more than 15 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and the situation will only worsen over the summer if we do not act now to prevent this looming tragedy.
We have responded, with the support and commitment of our partners in the region. A special collaboration with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, an ecumenical network grouping 15 churches and Church organizations, has enabled us to contribute $5 million for food distribution to 145,000 people in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. This ambitious project will enable us to help hundreds of thousands of people in this crisis. The situation is very difficult on the ground and very little is known about it by the public and media. We are talking about millions of people who are affected by this crisis and if we want our support to go beyond the initial crisis and also help prevent further vulnerability in the future, we will need much more financial resources in the coming months.
Read the press releases
- Joint campaign for Development and Peace and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
- Development and Peace commits $5 million for food aid in West Africa