Can't Pay - Can't Have

The ongoing food crisis in the Sahel, West Africa is actually a purchasing power crisis: there is food in the markets, but the poorest households cannot afford it said Bakari Seidou, food security advisor to Save the Children UK.

"The market is their main source of food, but they need money. Their main source of cash is their labour: they earn an average of 20 cents a day per person; even if there is food available on the markets, they can not afford it."

Insufficient agricultural production: the poorest families have insufficient earning power; more than 50 percent of household income comes from paid labour, but significant numbers are unable to secure work locally and are forced to migrate or sell their land to buy food and pay debts.

More than half the income of the poorest goes to food: even in agricultural areas, food purchases eat up more than half of family income; any food price increase means a family may eat less, consume food of poor nutritional value, or cut education and health expenses.

Substantial wealth gap: in agricultural areas, the richest earn from nine to 15 times more than the poorest; even though they only represent 15 percent of households, the richest own more than half the cultivated land and cattle.

And in Kenya according to Alun McDonald, the regional media and communications officer of Oxfam GB,hundreds of thousands of people in Nairobi already live in serious poverty and are just surviving. "They simply can't afford to pay any more for food,"

Meanwhile, Kenyan politicians gave themslves a monthly pay rise of nearly 25%, making them some of the best-paid legislators in the world bring it to £8,920 a month (In Kenya the minimum wage was last month raised to £50 a month for employees in cities and £25 for farm workers)