The time has come to accept that the UN is not, and cannot be, the fire brigade of the world ,writes John O'Shea
Goal's chartered airlift to Niger today constitutes a shocking indictment of the international community's sheer inability to cope with natural disasters.
Last week, Goal was busily trying to meet humanitarian requests in the Congo, northern Uganda, Sri Lanka and Darfur as well as in many other trouble spots. Our resources were stretched to the outer limit.
But the appalling indifference and apathy of the international community towards the plight of four million starving inhabitants of Niger has caused Goal to dig deep and effect a meaningful response.
Rank and file people in this country, and indeed throughout the civilised world, must be showing signs of bewilderment at the tragic sights of emaciated children from the second poorest nation on earth, being beamed into their television sets each evening.
Isn't it true that the rock stars got millions to march against famine recently and that the G8 - the most influential group of individuals on earth - met to discuss and ultimately decide on aid to the poorest?
Shouldn't everything be okay now for the most vulnerable populations in Africa and elsewhere? Sadly, this is not the case.
Reality has kicked in - and for those forced to eke out a precarious living in Niger, it has kicked with the ferocity of a mule.
Food is at the very core of the Niger nightmare and the body charged with the responsibility of providing nutrition for the helpless in Niger - the United Nations - has once again failed to deliver.
Predictably, the UN blames member states for not responding generously to its requests for cash; the international governments respond by claiming they have more pressing priorities on their purse.
The reason that the people of Niger will die of starvation in the coming weeks and months is due wholly to the lack of accountability on the part of the international community. If they had shown some integrity, Goal and other aid agencies wouldn't be desperately trying to avert another prodigious humanitarian disaster.
Who is actually responsible for the aid effort at the moment? Is it the UN Security Council, is Kofi Annan or is it every member state of the Council? The truth is that nobody is willing to take responsibility; hence we have plenty of activity in the blame game - aid agencies blaming one another and the UN blaming the international community, because ultimately, no one is answerable or everyone.
The international community refuses to acknowledge the fact that we do not have the mechanisms in place to prevent famine, or deal with it when it happens. Sadly, it may be too late for the stricken people of Niger but the time has come to accept that the United Nations is not, and cannot be, the fire brigade of the world. It is time to take control and deal with this scandalous lack of commitment, which should have us hanging our heads in shame.
To even a person with the vaguest interest or knowledge of Third World affairs, it's blatantly obvious that the world lacks a mechanism to respond adequately to famine situations.
Those of us who have toiled to try to alleviate the suffering of the poor for the last 28 years are acutely aware of this shocking gap in the system, but our calls to have it filled have fallen very much on deaf ears.
Mind-blowing though it is, the international community continues to ignore the obvious.
What is needed is a rapid-response force that could rush into a beleaguered area at a moment's notice. A crack unit of doctors, nurses, engineers and logistical staff, who are able to commence emergency strategies as soon as a crisis is identified.
Any forethought should also involve the pre-positioning of food silos in endemic famine countries, for such an eventuality. The concept of a rapid response force is easily achievable - after all, haven't we visited the moon on more than one occasion? Let's take some of the energy and good will we saw at Gleneagles and filter it away from debt relief and into the right direction - towards those who are starving to death on barren wastelands - those who really need our help.
Can we, in heaven's name, set the blame game aside and concentrate on one single issue - the saving of the lives of those affected by famine? I refuse to believe that the international community cannot devise a strategy which can cope with the aftermath of a drought or locust attack, the root cause of the Niger famine.
Expecting the non-governmental agency sector to provide the panacea is seriously off the mark and grossly unfair, especially to those in need. Non-government organisations have a significant role to play - both in the advocacy area as well as in the practical delivery of support to the forgotten.
But their very size militates against their being able to reach all of those who require our help. And every human life is precious.
Selfishness presents itself in curious ways. One would have hoped, even expected, that a government would have taken unilateral action and decided to send in thousands of tonnes of food and people to deliver it to the inaccessible areas. Some would have thought that France, with strong colonial links to Niger, would have jumped the queue. Again we were to be disappointed.
Above the deafening silence of the international community we heard the faint but definite thud of the buck being passed.
It is now pretty clear to this observer that the international community hasn't yet reached the point where it cares sufficiently about the lives of black women and children caught up in the famine, to take the action which can save their lives.
True, they will continue to relieve debt and talk about trade regulations and might even cut down on the prodigious amount of weaponry which they sell to the governments of the Third World. But discovering the courage and the love to rescue millions of children from famine situations seems as far away now from their thinking as it was on that day when I stepped off a plane in Cambodia and witnessed some of the genocidal horror which Pol Pot had wreaked on his population.
John O'Shea is chief executive of Goal