Short-term food security improved in much of Southern Africa while the world’s attention was focused on terrorism and the war in Iraq.
Though there are still food supply problems in Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique, and food shortages in areas of other countries, the food and crop situation has improved in most of Southern Africa. But this is no time for complacency. Much remains to be done throughout the region to increase agricultural production and to provide equitable access to food, particularly for the most vulnerable groups.
Food aid stocks already positioned in the region must be carefully targeted to help the destitute without depressing market prices, harming the already low incomes of local farmers, or lowering incentives to produce for the future. This may require aid agencies to redirect available stocks and increasingly rely upon local purchases. Freer movement of basic foodstuffs across national and regional markets would also help.
More favourable weather has given Southern Africa a respite, but all components of the agricultural sector remain fragile. Governments and donor agencies must do more to help farmers and herders get ready for the next main agricultural season by replacing lost assets and by providing credit, technical support and farm inputs such as seeds and fertilizer. Better management of water resources, including increased irrigation, will also go a long way to increasing farm productivity and therefore food security.
The agricultural sector must be revitalised to strengthen regional markets, particularly in livestock trade. If we are to move from a situation of chronic emergency response to one of development, people must have a chance to make a decent living from the rural economies of the region.
Southern Africa is beset by high rates of HIV/Aids, which pervades and undermines all aspects of the region’s economies and food security. Its effects, as transmitted through deep slashes in the population, will be felt for many years to come. To mitigate these effects, urgent action is required to promote labour-saving practices, income-generating activities and life skills that deal with the inter-generational loss of knowledge.
However, the region is not facing these hardships alone. In the area of food security, for example, the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have long been partners with the Southern African Development Community.
They keep watch on the food and crop prospects of the region, fielding joint missions to assess the food needs and the crop prospects for each growing season. These mission reports, published by the FAO and WFP, provide critical information on food insecurity in the region. They constitute an early-warning system that alerts the world to potential threats to food supply caused by natural and man-made disturbances.
Making full use of state-of-the-art information technology, the FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System collects, analyses and publishes critical food security information that policymakers and relief agencies worldwide have come to trust as the most up-to-date and accurate information available. Today the early-warning system comprises a food security network of 115 governments, 61 NGOs and many trade, research and media organisations.
As part of the regional inter-agency coordination and support office, the FAO and WFP have not only provided the information needed to make life-and-death decisions on which food aid and humanitarian relief depend, but work with others, including governments and non-governmental organisations, to provide emergency food assistance. They also provide farmers, herders and fishing communities with the inputs, tools and training to resume sustainable and economically rewarding activities.
For instance, FAO programmes like the special programme for food security are showing many countries in Southern Africa ways to overcome crop and food difficulties. The programme helps people improve their food security through rapid increases in food production and productivity. It improves people’s access to food while reducing year-to-year variability in food production.
The FAO is looking forward to the day when many Southern African countries will again produce not just enough food for themselves, but also for export. They can do this by working to level the playing field in agricultural trade by influencing the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agricultural trade negotiations to reduce trade distortions in the global market and by ensuring that any changes made to the rules that govern international agricultural trade also help increase food security for all. To achieve this goal, FAO provides training programmes that prepare trade experts from developing countries and countries in transition for the WTO negotiations.
The FAO’s primary goal continues to be the reduction of hunger in the world by improving food production, farm productivity and access to adequate healthy food for all. As far as Southern Africa is concerned, this will require a significant increase in support for well-targeted and appropriate interventions.
Henri Josserand is chief of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Global Information and Early Warning System