Aid groups are calling on rich countries like Canada to hold a donors' conference by the end of the month to stave off widespread famine in West Africa's Sahel region.
Across the eight-country belt that stretches from Senegal to Chad, crops have failed and food is scarce, leaving 15 million people -- including at least 1 million children below the age of five -- at risk of malnutrition, according to UNICEF.
"This year is the worst that we have ever had. Because this year I didn't harvest anything," Saidi Mohamed, the mother of an 18-month-old boy in Chad, told CNN.
Another mother, Halima Adoum, said that food prices are so high she had to feed her four-year-old son grass. He died before she could beg for more food.
Insecurity in the region is exacerbating the food crisis, while the recent conflict in Mali, which has displaced more than 200,000 people, has increased the demand for emergency assistance, according to UNICEF.
The aid agency said action is urgently needed to stave off widespread famine as was seen in the Horn of Africa last year when millions died from hunger and malnutrition.
"Here we know it is coming. There is absolutely no excuse," said UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake.
The United Nations late last year appealed for $745 million to help prevent disaster in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal, but so far has received only half that amount.
Canada has contributed $41 million.
"Providing humanitarian assistance in times of emergency is one of the core businesses that Canada does as far as its international development policies," Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird told CTV's Power Play on Friday.
He added that the government "responded very early with a substantial commitment well beyond the proportion that Canada usually takes in these international crises."
But aid groups say Canada can do more.
"We think there needs to be a donors' conference, not in the next months, but next weeks, before the end of April," said Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam Canada.
Officials say Canada is reluctant to push for a donors' conference. Instead the government wants rich nations to provide aid dollars now before a famine breaks out.
"We hope that other countries will follow suit and join us," in making financial contributions, Baird said.
With a report by CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife
