By Aliou Boly, IFRC Programme Coordinator in Mauritania
23/05/2013: As the fourth session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction gets underway, it is heartening to hear heads of governments, corporate leaders, international organizations and civil society voicing the same sentiments of the importance of reducing disaster risk and building community resilience, the clear link between community resilience and sustainable development and the need to bridge the divide in resources between emergency response and disaster risk reduction.
Working in Mauritania, I see building the resilience of communities and making them stronger as key aspects to addressing the underlying issue of food security in the country. In the present state of accelerated climate change, addressing the issue of food security does not require new, ground breaking ideologies and methodologies; but a simple shift in how we approach issue, using the knowledge that we also know and the skills and tools that we already have, to look at it and address it creatively from a different point of view.
It is evident that food security in Mauritania and other parts of Africa is directly connected to the availability of water, cultural farming techniques and tools, conflict and the ongoing food crisis, which continue to trap already vulnerable communities in a vicious cycle of poverty and hunger.
When the rainfall is good, there is almost no food crisis, but rainfall deficit, people become food insecure. The lack of knowledge or perhaps the use of medieval farming tools and limited access to modern farming techniques lead to poor crop yields. All these factors combined, including political turmoil, inflation and conflict, make communities even more vulnerable to the effects of disasters.
It is clear that the issue of food security calls for integrated action to address its underlying causes. For example, innovative interventions that can reduce dependency on rainfall, adapting modern methods and tools with cultural farming techniques will lead to the development of stronger, empowered and resilient communities.
It goes without saying that disaster preparedness and prevention increase the resilience of communities. It is intrinsically linked. Therefore, beyond the specific actions for resilience which enable vulnerable communities to cope with and recover from disasters, we must also invest in increasing the readiness of communities for the eventuality of disasters. Resources and efforts should be committed more and more to reduce the risk of food crises in addition to the focus on emergency response, which while critical to saving lives, is often limited and unable to address the underlying issues.
What we call for is investing in a 'twin track' approach that combines emergency response, recovery and disaster risk reduction – which boils down to building resilience. It is necessary to tackle the issue of food security in its entirety and in an integrated way. It is in our own interest since this kind of approach is more impact effective as well as probably more cost effective, helps break the vulnerability cycle and guarantees more positive impact for the most vulnerable communities especially when it comes to protecting and strengthening their livelihoods.