LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "It's a catastrophic year. The drought is severe. We need urgent intervention to prevent a famine," Ahmed Weddady, national director in the Ministry of Water and Sanitation of Mauritania says. Mauritania has the world's least amount of potable water, which suffered the worst harvest shortfall in the region. A third of Mauritania's population already suffers from severe food insecurity.

Rural populations in the Sahel have started to run out of food in early February, a good six months before the next harvest is expected. A drought destroyed the majority of the harvest late last year.

Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria have all called for international assistance to prevent yet another hunger crisis on the continent. Only Senegal, which will hold presidential elections later this month, has abstained.

The First World, already plagued by financial crises and having just spent millions of dollars in emergency aid during last year's Somalia famine, have been slow to respond to current appeals. Barely half of the $650 million needed by the United Nations alone have been pledged. Other aid agencies say they are equally short of funds.

The longer donors wait, the more lives will be lost and the more expensive it will be to help, José Luis Fernandez, regional emergency coordinator of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. says. "That's the lesson we learnt in Somalia. We don't have time to lose. We need to mobilize support now."

In human and economic terms, the irony of the situation is clear. It costs 10 to 20 times more to airlift food into an affected area than to ship it. It costs 80 dollars a day to treat a malnourished child, while it would cost only one dollar a day to prevent the child's malnutrition if the money was invested in development programs in advance.

The problem in the Sahel, long-term development programs are barely existent. The region suffers from cyclic droughts that have led to low resilience among the population. Even in a "normal" year, half of all children under five suffer chronic malnutrition.

Climate change, combined with population growth, acute poverty, poor access to basic services, changing migration patterns and weak governance, competition over scarce resources and conflict potential have intensified in a region where the majority is dependent on rain-fed agriculture and livestock for survival.

© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.