Oxfam's West Africa food crisis page highlights some of the longer-term challenges facing the region following the 2005 hunger crisis.

One of the better journalists to cover the emergency was the Guardian's Jeevan Vasagar, who wrote eloquently about the paradox of Niger's food shortages. His article, "Plenty of food - yet the poor are starving", appeared in August 2005.

IRIN, the U.N.'s humanitarian news agency, gives a thorough background to the emergency in "West Africa: Year in Review 2005".

For a more in-depth look at the crisis, the Humanitarian Policy Group at the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) produced an excellent report last August, examining the profound challenges to humanitarian policy posed by the Niger crisis.