UN food agency chief to visit West Africa to spotlight 'silent emergencies'

The Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will visit West Africa next week to spotlight the “silent emergencies” gripping the region, the agency announced today.

“WFP is working in partnership throughout West Africa to address chronic malnutrition and climatic shock, and to ensure food security,” said Josette Sheeran, who will travel from 12 to 16 November to Mali and Senegal.

“I look forward to meeting national and village-level leaders, as well as our beneficiaries, to discuss how we can beat hunger at its root.”

Ms Sheeran will visit WFP projects in Mali, one of the world's poorest countries where the rural poor are among the first to suffer new threats such as climate change and rising global commodity prices.

Ms Sheeran will conclude her trip by attending a regional meeting in Dakar.

West Africa, WFP said faces a “gathering storm” of desertification, land degradation, spiralling food prices in the face of the rise of biofuels, child malnutrition and low school enrolment rates.