Lake Chad Basin: Position Paper
The Lake Chad Basin is suffering the world’s largest overlooked humanitarian crisis, with approximately 10.7 million people in need of immediate humanitarian assistance and tens of thousands at risk of starvation (UN OCHA, February 2017). Mercy Corps strongly supports the call for significant, urgent response. However, we must also look for ways even in the midst of crisis to avoid long-term dependence on external assistance and to build community resilience to future shocks and stresses. Drawing on our experience of resilience-based programming globally and our knowledge of the Lake Chad Basin, this position paper outlines our long-term vision for alleviating the immediate suffering, poverty and oppression of conflict-affected populations and improving the conditions to enable long-term, resilient development in the Lake Chad Basin.
