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GUESTS: Frederic Mousseau, a Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute and Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, both are co-authors of the report

We end the show today with a look at chronic hunger which globally affects more than 800 million people and kills nearly 6.5 million children each year. According to the United Nations about 300,000 children under the age of five risk death from malnutrition every year in the Sahel region of Africa which is in the North Western part of the continent. The region includes Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso. Last year, a food crisis in Niger made news headlines all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of children were treated by aid agencies, breaking past records of relief intervention. Despite this, thousands of children still died of hunger related causes. The 2005 food crisis has been blamed on locust invasion and drought. However, according to a new report by the Oakland Institute, last year’s crisis cannot be singled out as an isolated episode in Niger’s history. The report entitled, “Sahel: A Prisoner of Starvation?” asks the following key questions: “What is the cause of this chronic emergency? How have several decades of development programs failed to eradicate hunger and malnutrition? What needs to be done to end this cycle of poverty and famine? and, What if any are the obligations of the international community during these food crises?”

“Sahel: A Prisoner of Starvation?” is a publication of the Oakland Institute (www.oaklandinstitute.org), a think tank for research, analysis, and action whose mission is to increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social, economic, and environmental issues in both national and international forums.