Bamako, 11 June, 2022 / 7:30 pm (ACI Africa).
The leadership of the global confederation of Catholic relief agencies, Caritas Internationalis (CI), has launched an emergency appeal seeking to empower “vulnerable agricultural producers” in Mali in view of addressing the challenge of household food insecurity in the West African nation.
In a Thursday, June 9 report, CI officials say Mali is facing “an unprecedented humanitarian crisis” as 4.8 million people in the country are currently food insecure due to the impacts of severe drought in addition to ongoing inter-community violence and unrest.
Since 2012, CI leadership says, “an absence of administration, access to basic social services and population displacements has created widespread fear and insecurity particularly ahead of this year’s lean season (June to August), in which 1.8 million people are expected to be acutely food insecure.”
“Caritas Internationalis has launched an Emergency Appeal, on behalf of Caritas Mali, aimed at empowering vulnerable agricultural producers to be food secure during this lean season (the period between planting and harvesting) when job opportunities are scarce,” CI officials say in the June 9 report.
They note that “Caritas Mali, working for the integral development of the human person, does not intend to remain on the sidelines of this imminent humanitarian crisis.”
