NIGER/FILE: In stricken Sahel, IMF chief Christine Lagarde's words on Greece strike a chord

Record ID: 235695

  • Title: NIGER/FILE: In stricken Sahel, IMF chief Christine Lagarde's words on Greece strike a chord
  • Date: 16th June 2012
  • Summary: NIAMEY, NIGER (JUNE 13, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF REFUGEE FAMILIES IN MAKESHIFT SHELTERS REFUGEE SALMOU OUMAROU WITH HER FAMILY CHILD (SOUNDBITE) (Zarma) REFUGEE, SALMOU OUMAROU, SAYING: "You can find suffering everywhere in the world, but here in Niger it's worse. If not, how can you explain that we are forced to leave our villages with all our children in search of food for them to eat, we are fighting just to stay alive." (SOUNDBITE) (Zarma) REFUGEE, DJINIA MAMAN, SAYING: "It's the last crop which hasn't been good, we were suffering from hunger, so the village chief told us to leave the village and search for food for the children." REFUGEE CHILD
  • Embargoed: 1st July 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Niger
  • Country: Niger
  • Topics: Economy,Politics,Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVA3CKSX1DXMVAL9FQC8SW1OX9M0
  • Story Text: The village of Ouallam in Niger, with its sand-choked alleys, crumbling mud huts and crippling poverty, is a world away from Athens, Europe's cradle of Western civilisation.
    But recent comments from International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde comparing the two have struck a chord here, where life's basics - food, health, education - have to be wrest from a crushingly harsh, unforgiving reality.
    At the local school, teacher Chiradjo Gazer, says Niger is in a food crisis rather than a financial crisis.
    "The problem Greece is having now is linked to the evolution of capitalism. In our country this is no longer a financial crisis, it's more a food crisis. I completely share her (Lagarde) view, seeing as the problem Greece has is an artificial problem," Gazer said.
    Lagarde said recently she was more worried about the plight of deprived youngsters in Niger than the people of Athens who should pay their taxes - causing uproar in debt-racked Greece - but earning her some fans in Niger.
    Even as Europe reels under a devastating debt crisis, with austerity and unemployment squeezing several of its members, for many needy Africans the northern continent still glitters as an opportunity to find a better life.
    In recent years, tens of thousands of Africans have risked their lives in dangerous desert crossings and arduous sea journeys in open boats to try to reach "Fortress Europe". Migration bids continue, despite Europe's current travails.
    "For a Nigerien to leave this place and just find himself in Greece, he would think he's in Paradise, that's the dream." said Maazou Lawali, the outgoing secretary general of the Niger University Student Union in Niamey.
    Failed rains last year left Niger and neighbouring Sahel countries including war-torn Mali, with yet another food crisis.
    U.K.-based aid group Oxfam estimates 18 million people in the region will be impacted by the food crisis this season.
    Education officials there say that, besides a lack of infrastructure and learning materials plaguing the district, frequent food shortages and crop failures are among the biggest challenges to providing local children an education.
    "A child who hasn't eaten can't follow the class, so the only solution here is to create school canteens, and hopefully this will stop children dropping out of school," Ouallam Education Department Director, Mahamadou Hamidou Niandou, said.
    It is not often the planet's most powerful financial institution wins praise in the struggling Third World, where IMF recipes of belt-tightening have sometimes earned it a reputation from critics as a heartless tool of U.S.-led capitalism.
    One of the world's poorest countries, Niger has received some $390 million of IMF support since 1984, in exchange for applying the fund's recipes, including public spending cuts.
    This is of course just a fraction of the nearly $29 billion disbursed by the IMF to Greece since its economic crisis began a few years ago.
    In a refugee camp in the Koira Kano neighbourhood of Niamey, where many families from Ouallam have fled, mothers say in Niger the suffering is just worse.
    "You can find suffering everywhere in the world, but here in Niger it's worse. If not, how can you explain that we are forced to leave our villages with all our children in search of food for them to eat, we are fighting just to stay alive," refugee, Salmou Oumarou.
    "It's the last crop which hasn't been good, we were suffering from hunger, so the village chief told us to leave the village and search for food for the children," refugee, Djinia Maman, said.
    The women here say considerations of taxes and savings are a luxury when faced with the ineluctable reality of just getting by day to day.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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