DAKAR (AlertNet) - People dying because of a lack of water and failing crops, emaciated livestock, drought ravaging whole regions...you probably think of East Africa when you read this.

West Africa, however, is just as vulnerable to food insecurity but a key difference between the west and the east of the continent is that in West Africa it is not induced by prolonged droughts, conflict and displacement but mainly by chronic poverty, analysts say.

"Poverty in this region means that people reduce their food in-take in order to accommodate for other expenses such as health care or prevent themselves from accessing adequate health care just to have one meal a day," Claude Jibidar, WFP's deputy regional director told AlertNet in an interview.

Twelve out of the bottom 22 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index are in West Africa and there is a huge proportion of the population for whom food production does not transform to immediate access to food.

"Our level of chronic malnutrition is higher than in some of those countries in conflict...," Jibidar told AlertNet.

"When you have 30 to 50 percent malnutrition in a region it means you have a large chunk of the population which is poor, at risk and vulnerable, and a combination of shocks could bring about a disastrous situation."

Such a shock occurred in Niger in 2005 when a combination of chronic poverty, drought, desert locust damage to pasture lands and high food prices created a severe hunger crises.

Aid agencies said between 10 and 15 children died per week and about 2.5 million people faced starvation.

INCREASING DEPENDENCE

"More people are excessively poor ..., producing less food themselves and increasingly relying on revenue from casual labour and remittances to get by and access food," said Jan Eijkenaar , ECHO's Sahel Malnutrition programme coordinator.

Poor agriculture policies and high food prices have also contributed to the acute food insecurity in the region.

There is a high dependence on imported food, particularly cereals like rice and wheat, with a country like Senegal importing 60 to 70 percent of the food it consumes.

"It is paramount that people produce what they eat and eat what they produce; if rice has become our staple, we need to produce rice like we produce maize and sorghum," Jibidar said.

When food prices soar on the world market, as rice and wheat prices did in 2008, the most vulnerable are unable to access their staple diets - a vicious cycle that created shortages, which eventually led to riots across the region.

"The main lesson from the food hikes is that West Africa cannot allow its food security to depend on an international markets over which it has no control," Mahamadou Alfari Maiga, regional food security advocacy coordinator for aid organisation Oxfam told AlertNet.

Jibidar said West African governments need to acknowledge hunger and chronic malnutrition as key challenges and commit to fighting them efficiently, including through the creation of safety nets for the most vulnerable.

Aid agencies, such as Oxfam, have also urged West African governments to invest in agriculture and push through the commitments made by African leaders in 2003 to adopt sound policies for agricultural and rural development.

The leaders committed themselves to allocating at least 10 percent of national budgetary resources to implement those policies within five years. But most of countries have failed to reach the targets.

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