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	Millions of vulnerable people threatened by food insecurity by WFP, FAO, UNICEF & agencies   June 28 (Reuters)   The worst drought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa has sparked a severe food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions, the United Nations said on Tuesday.   More than 12 million people are now affected in drought-stricken areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and the situation is deteriorating, it said.   "Two consecutive poor rainy seasons have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones," Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a media briefing. "There is no likelihood of improvement (in the situation) until 2012," she said.   Food prices have risen substantially in the region, pushing many moderately poor households over the edge, she said.   A U.N. map of food security in the eastern Horn of Africa shows large swathes of central Kenya and Somalia in the "emergency" category, one phase before what the U.N. classifies as catastrophe/famine -- the worst category.   Child malnutrition rates in the worst affected areas are more than double the emergency threshold of 15 percent and are expected to rise further, Byrs said. High mortality rates among children are reported.   Drought and fighting are driving ever greater numbers of Somalis from their homeland, with more than 20,000 arriving in Kenya in just the past two weeks, the U.N. refuge agency UNHCR said on Friday. It voiced alarm at the dramatic rise, noting the average monthly outflow had been about 10,000 so far this year.   Almost half the Somali children arriving in refugee camps in Ethiopia are malnourished, and those arriving in Kenya are little better, Byrs said.   U.N. humanitarian appeals for Somalia and Kenya, each about $525 million, are barely 50 percent funded, while a $30 million appeal for Djibouti is just 30 percent funded, she said.   May 2011   Aid money running low as nearly 11 million face devastating drought in Horn of Africa. (Save the Children)   Nearly 11 million people are now facing severe food and water shortages after a life-threatening drought worsened in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, a consortium of leading British aid agencies hosted by Save the Children has warned.   The Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies (CBHA) says a lack of seasonal rains has led to failed harvests, acute water and pasture shortages, and the deaths of thousands of animals in the region. Thousands of people have already fled their homes in search of water and grass for their livestock.   In some areas of Somalia and northern Kenya up to 30 percent of the population is suffering from acute malnutrition, which is double the amount sufficient to declare a humanitarian emergency.   Member agencies are working to provide urgent support such as clean water, food, and protection for surviving livestock to those in the most immediate need but has warned that a lack of funding is continuing to hamper the response.   CBHA Director Sean Lowrie said “with the United Nations and humanitarian aid organisations already warning of a looming catastrophe in the Horn of Africa, the international aid sector needs more money to respond as quickly and effectively as possible.”   Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia form part of the Horn of Africa, a consistently drought-prone region still recovering from one of the worst droughts in recent history. Over 20 million people were facing life-threatening shortages of food and water in 2009 following successive years of failed rains.   Early warning systems mean humanitarian agencies have become increasingly efficient in spotting potential emergencies before they reach critical stages, but the CBHA has warned that the current drought has the potential to be as devastating as that of 2009 if appropriate action is not taken immediately.   "We know the lessons from previous disasters and we have a moral responsibility to act, but we are limited by this lack of funding at a critical time," Sean Lowrie said.   (Members of the CBHA include ActionAid, Action Against Hunger, CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide UK, HelpAge International, International Rescue Committee UK, Islamic Relief Worldwide, Merlin, Oxfam GB, Plan International UK, Save the Children UK, Tearfund and World Vision UK).   Apr 2011   Somalia: "Worst drought in a lifetime".(IRIN)   Officials and aid workers in Somalia"s Middle Shabelle region have raised the alarm over the plight of drought-stricken villagers urgently needing food and water.   "We are experiencing the worst drought we have seen in decades; since the beginning of March, we have buried 54 people who died from the effects of the drought, seven of them today [20 April]," said Ali Barow, leader of the small town of Guulane, 220km northeast of Mogadishu, the Somali capital.   Barow said Guulane and the surrounding villages of Eil Barwaaqo, Hirka Dheere and Hagarey, with an estimated population of 20,000-25,000, were suffering the effects of a prolonged drought.   He said a local NGO had undertaken water trucking but it was not enough and "did not reach most of the residents. They did well but ran out of money before they could make much of a difference."   Abukar Abdulahi Tifow, the country director of the Women and Child Care Organization (WOCCA), a local NGO, who visited some of the villages, told IRIN the situation was desperate. "What we saw was depressing; some of the villagers were eating wild berries and cooking "garaz" [a yellowish bean normally eaten by animals during drought]; that was all the food they had."   Tifow said his group trucked water for 1,420 families (about 8,520 people) in the four weeks they were there. "Unfortunately, there were many more we did not reach. We simply ran out of funds."   He said all the water points in the area had dried up. "The remaining water points are not fit for human consumption but people are desperate and will drink anything."   Tifow said almost all the deaths were water related. "Most of them died of AWD [acute watery diarrhoea] that was caused by drinking contaminated water."   Alasow Sharey Bool, 80, said both people and livestock were dying in the area. "In my 80 years, I have never experienced what I have seen now. This is the worst drought I have witnessed in my lifetime."   Bool said he had seen animals trying to eat the entrails of a dead animal: "That is how desperate the situation is."   He said in the past three years, the area had had very little or no rain. "What is making it worse is that we don"t have anything to fall back on. We have not recovered from the last drought and now this one seems to be going on for ever.   "We have had problems with food shortages and water but I have never seen anything quite like this," Bool said, urging aid agencies to help.   A local journalist, said: "The entire region is suffering from a combination of a severe drought and incredibly high prices for the most basic necessities and needs help."   According to UN estimates, at least 2.4 million Somalis need help across the country, with another 1.4 million being displaced.   April 2011   Lack of funds threatens UN food aid to millions of vulnerable Afghans.   The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today it urgently needs $257 million to continue providing food and assistance to over 7 million vulnerable Afghans, most of whom are women and children.   “We are making this appeal to give us the best possible chance of plugging the looming gaps in supply,” said Louis Imbleau, WFP’s Country Director for Afghanistan. “Food security is the bedrock of development in this country – especially for the youngest and most vulnerable.”   WFP’s operation in Afghanistan has a twin focus, providing lifesaving relief and emergency aid for immediate needs, including those stemming from conflict and natural disaster, and improving overall food security, in partnership with the Government.   The agency lacks half of the funding it needs to assist 7.3 million Afghans across all 34 provinces this year.   This will affect millions of people in Afghanistan, where wheat is the primary food staple and is used in rations for nearly all WFP operations, including for women and other marginalized groups, and emergency food distributions. The funding shortfall will also mean that WFP will have to scale back school-feeding activities by half, affecting more than a million schoolchildren.   “By August, without swift and robust support from the international community, WFP will have exhausted all remaining commodities and be forced to reduce or suspend some parts of the operation,” it stated.   The agency is calling on donors to provide an injection of funds so that it can begin procuring food locally and regionally to avoid a potentially devastating break in food supplies.   April 2011   As drought deepens in Ethiopia, UN and partners urge scaling up of aid.   United Nations humanitarian agencies are calling for increased assistance to an estimated 2 million people affected by drought in the Horn of Africa country, where emergency conditions are projected to persist until the next rainy season arrives in October.   Water is being transported by truck to drought-hit residents of the southern and south-eastern lowlands of the country, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in an update issued today.   UN aid agencies, working with national authorities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are also distributing food to households in need and providing health care, veterinary services and livestock feed.   The agencies have warned of an increased risk of disease outbreaks, which has been plagued by drought in recent years.   The Ethiopian Government has requested an additional $75 million for humanitarian assistance this month, while UN agencies and their partners have called for more resources to meet increasing needs and expand operations in the coming months.   High global food and fuel price rises have raised the cost of buying and importing essential commodities, including food.   29 April 2011   UN agencies begin emergency operations to feed 3.5 million people in Nth Korea.   The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have announced plans to introduce emergency operations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to feed an estimated 3.5 million people in desperate need after crop losses and a particularly bitter winter.   Women and children will be the focus of the one-year WFP operation, which follows an assessment by several aid agencies of food security inside the DPRK, according to a press release issued by the agency. The operation is expected to cost just over $200 million.   UNICEF has launched a $20 million appeal to fund assistance programmes in the five DPRK provinces with the highest rates of malnutrition and in other counties with similar problems.   Many families have already resorted to cutting the size or number of meals each day, and Government-supplied rations provide only about half of a person’s daily food needs.   “We face a critical window to get supplies into the country and reach the millions who are already hungry,” said Amir Abdulla, WFP’s Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer. “Our primary concern is for those who are most vulnerable to shocks in the food supply – children, mothers, the elderly and large families.”   “WFP has worked in the DPRK for 15 years and we will be drawing on all that experience and expertise to ensure this operation provides vital, timely food and nutrition to those who cannot support themselves through these difficult months,” Mr. Abdulla noted.   UNICEF’s assistance programme will target more than 400,000 young children and an estimated 165,000 pregnant or lactating women, regarded as among the most vulnerable groups in the current crisis.   Ms. Mercado said the programme will also aim to help children living permanently in institutions as they do not have extended families from which to draw support.   A survey carried out in 2009 found that 32 per cent of DPRK children were stunted, with even higher rates in some rural areas.   If no action had been been taken to combat the current food and nutrition crisis, children who are now mild to moderately malnourished can rapidly become severely malnourished and decrease their chance of survival or full development potential.   Maternal nutrition is of great concern as well, as over a quarter of women in DPRK aged 15-49 are under-nourished.   http://www.wfp.org/countries/korea-democratic-peoples-republic-dprk Visit the related web page
	Climate change-related water scarcity to affect global food production by UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO)   9 June 2011   The world will increasingly experience water scarcity for agriculture as a result of climate change, a phenomenon that will affect the livelihoods of rural communities and the food security of urban dwellers, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a survey released today.   The impact of climate change on the availability of water include reduction in river run-off and aquifer recharges in the Mediterranean and the semi-arid areas of the Americas, Australia and Southern Africa, regions that are already showing signs of water stress, according to the FAO survey entitled “Climate Change, Water, and Food Security.”   In Asia, large areas of irrigated land that rely on snowmelt and mountain glaciers for water will also be affected, while heavily populated river deltas are at risk from a combination of reduced water flows, increased salinity, and rising sea levels.   The findings of the survey also show that an acceleration of the world’s hydrological cycle is anticipated as rising temperatures increase the rate of evaporation from land and sea. Rainfall will increase in the tropics and higher latitudes, but decrease in already dry semi-arid to mid-arid latitudes and in the interior of large continents.   A greater frequency in droughts and floods will need to be planned for, but already water scarce areas of the world are expected to become drier and hotter.   The report points out that even though estimates of groundwater recharge under climate change cannot be made with any certainty, the increasing frequency of droughts is expected to encourage further exploitation of available groundwater to boost production for farmers.   Loss of glaciers, which support around 40 per cent of the world’s irrigation, will eventually have an impact on the amount of surface water available for agriculture in key producing basins.   Rising temperatures will lengthen the growing season in northern temperate zones, but reduce the length almost everywhere else. Increased rates of crop moisture loss will also result in reduced yields.   “Both the livelihoods of rural communities as well as the food security of city populations are at risk,” said Alexander Mueller, the FAO Assistant Director General for Natural Resources. “But the rural poor, who are the most vulnerable, are likely to be disproportionately affected.”   The FAO report recommends that countries implement effective systems for “water accounting” thorough measurement of water supplies, transfers, and transactions to inform decisions about how water resources can be managed and used under increasing variability.   “Water accounting in most developing countries is very limited, and allocation procedures are non-existent, ad hoc, or poorly developed,” according to the survey. “Helping developing countries acquire good water accounting practices and developing robust and flexible water allocations systems will be a first priority.”   At the farm level, growers can change their cropping patterns to allow earlier or later planting, reducing their water use and optimizing irrigation. Yields and productivity can be improved by shifting to soil moisture conservation practices, including zero- and minimum tillage. Planting deep-rooted crops would allow farmers to better exploit available soil moisture, FAO recommends.   Mixed agro-forestry systems also hold promise. The systems both sequester carbon and also offer additional benefits such as shade that reduces ground temperatures and evaporation, added wind protection, and improved soil conservation and water retention. Visit the related web page
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