UN World Food Programme urges more funding to save lives in southern Africa by WFP / BBC News / UN News 10:43am 25th Oct, 2005   Geneva, 01 November 2005    Source: United Nations World Food Programme.    In a bid to boost contributions to its chronically under-funded operation in southern Africa, WFP has urged all countries, including traditional and non-traditional donors from the European Community as well as oil-producing states, to help the hungry people of southern Africa – millions of whom are struggling to find food for even one meal a day.    “Governments have the financial power to save lives in southern Africa,” said Mike Sackett, WFP Regional Director for Southern Africa, who has travelled to the heart of Europe to drive his message home.    “However, some governments have yet to make a contribution to the regional operation or are simply undecided – faced with competing humanitarian disasters. The children of southern Africa need help now - before their tiny emaciated bodies appear on television screens.”    Food assistance needed urgently    At least 9.7 million people in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe require urgent food assistance through to April 2006.    Unless donors step forward with cash contributions to plug WFP’s immediate shortfall of US$ 157 million, many people will not receive help in time.    No funds from oil-rich states    “The United States is by far the biggest donor to WFP’s operations in southern Africa, giving more than US$104 million this year, while members of the European Union have given US$64 million,” Sackett said.    “No funds have yet been pledged by the oil-rich states to our current regional appeal – even though oil prices have been reaching record highs for most of this year.”    Fourth year of food shortages    Southern Africa is experiencing its fourth consecutive year of food shortages, exacerbated by crushing poverty and the world’s highest rates of HIV/AIDS. Many people’s problems are further compounded by recent hikes in the price of maize and other staple commodities.    Prices usually rise during the lean season – from December to the March/April harvest – when maize is scarcest on the market and people have consumed their own reserves – but this year the lean season started in August, and now food in not only in short supply, but also largely unaffordable.    The outlook in August was already so bleak in southern Africa that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote to 27 Heads of State, the European Commission and the African Development Bank to raise the alarm about urgent funding to “avert a catastrophe.”    Hand-to-mouth existence    Many people in rural communities are now living a hand-to-mouth existence, eating wild foods which amount to little more than fibrous seed pods and nuts from certain trees.    Across the region there have been reports of people dying as a result of eating poisonous wild foods – some are toxic unless cooked for many hours.    Harshest months ahead    “People are struggling to survive and the harshest months are still ahead,” Sackett said. “It’s tragic that there is so much wealth in the world but so little of it is ever shared with those whose very existence depends upon it.”    “WFP can save lives in southern Africa for just US$2.50 per person per month,” Sackett added. “The fact is that there are nearly 10 million people in the region who need help over the next six months.    “This adds up to a considerable sum of money which only governments are in a position to find.”    28 October, 2005    Hunger crisis undermines Africa. (BBC News)    Increasing levels of hunger are destabilising Africa, the head of the UN"s World Food Programme has warned.    James Morris told the United Nations that continuing armed conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa were undermining the WFP"s efforts to feed 43 million people.    Food shortages could spur migration away from rural areas and spark unrest between villagers and tribes, he added. Mr Morris criticised world leaders for not making greater efforts to reduce hunger in line with public pledges. He blamed poverty, conflict, HIV/Aids, drought and weak public governance for contributing the Africa"s food crisis.    At 43 million, the WFP is attempting to feed twice as many Africans as in 1995. Some 852m people around the world are classed as hungry each year, Mr Morris said, despite a 50% reduction in hunger being listed as one of the key Millennium Development Goals. "Competition for limited food resources in fragile environments can cause instability," Mr Morris said. "We have seen this problem for decades not just in Sudan, but in Mauritania, Senegal and other countries as well. "It was one of the early warning signs in Niger, when unrest broke out between nomadic grazers and villagers."    Just 18 world leaders referred to hunger during more than 170 speeches at the UN"s World Development Summit in September, Mr Morris said.    He called for new early warning systems to alert leaders to the dangers of hunger, better planning for shortages and a new attention to maintaining adequate food stocks.    31 October 2005. (UN News)    Every child who died of hunger in today”s world was the victim of an assassination, Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.    Introducing his report on the right to food, he said that the Food and Agriculture Organization’s recent report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2004,stated that the world’s agricultural production could provide nourishment to 12 billion people, yet 852 million people were permanently undernourished; 100,000 people died of hunger every day; and a child under 10 years of age died from hunger every five seconds. That was a daily massacre of human beings through malnutrition.    The tragedy was the most intense in Africa, he said. For example, bad harvests last year had destroyed the lives of millions of people in the Sahel, especially in the Niger, where, instead of the usual 1.6 million tonnes of millet, only 430 tonnes had been harvested. One third of the population was on the verge of destruction, but international organizations had responded inadequately. United Nations agencies could not be blamed, however, as they simply lacked the means to resolve the crisis. The majority of Member States, particularly the Western countries, had provided a totally insufficient response.    Continuing to focus on Africa, he said that more than 400,000 people living in refugee camps in the United Republic of Tanzania were receiving only 1,400 calories a day, whereas the World Food Programme (WFP) recommended a daily minimum of 2,100 calories per adult. Those refugees, therefore, were receiving only two thirds of the nourishment necessary for survival.    The resources available to international organizations were declining as instances of human tragedy were increasing, he said. In 2003, for example, the WFP had over 10 million tonnes of food at its disposal for distribution; today they had only 7 million tonnes. There was a lot of indifference towards that tragedy on the part of the world’s powerful States. Despite the efforts of non-governmental organizations and international organizations to mobilize States to take action, the general state of public opinion, particularly that in the Western world, and particularly towards Africa, was one of growing indifference.    Asked about the current situation regarding food security in Liberia, he said that country’s economy had suffered a great deal. As of December 2004, more than 18 per cent of the population and over 50 per cent of children below 10 years of age were gravely and permanently undernourished. That destruction could not be recuperated and perhaps a whole generation would be gravely affected by such under-nourishment.
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