United Nations envoy for humanitarian needs James Morris winds up his trip to drought-stricken Southern African this week, meeting with Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to discuss food needs.
Several countries in the region have been hit by food shortages and Zimbabwe’s situation has been the closely watched following its announcement a year ago that it required no foreign food aid while claiming a bumper harvest.
Morris has already been forewarned by the state media not to overstep his mandate when he visits the country on Wednesday.
Adopting a conciliatory tone from last week, when it accused the UN of handing out ”poisonous food” to Zimbabwe last year, the Sunday Mail said Morris had so far refused to be drawn into ”politicising” his food aid mission to Harare ”by Western powers”.
”Attempts by the international media … to politicise the visit … has hit a snag as the envoy has repeatedly made it clear that he will ‘narrowly focus on humanitarian issues and leave politics to others’,” said the paper in a front page story.
The visit comes in the wake of food shortages experienced in Southern Africa due to inadequate rains in the just-ended farming season and a year after Zimbabwean authorities turned away foreign aid, saying it had produced in excess to its requirements.
Although it is agreed that the country faces food shortages, there has been no agreed statistics on the magnitude of the problem.
The government says about 2,4-million people face hunger while aid agencies estimate that the number could be around four million, or a third of the population.
Regional food security agency Fewsnet bemoaned the lack of consensus on the ”size of the deficit and its geographic spread in the country, nor … the numbers of people requiring food or current national food stocks”.
Due to the production failure of the staple, maize, the bulk of the country’s 1,8-million tonnes of food requirements will have to be imported, but there are fears the government may have difficulties importing enough grain to go round — mainly due to shortages of foreign exchange.
”The need for imports has to compete with other national priorities such as fuel, electricity, medicines and education, all of which require foreign currency,” said Fewsnet in its latest food security update.
Although no formal food aid appeal has been launched, Morris’ statements indicate Zimbabwe will accept foreign humanitarian aid.
Morris is expected to hold talks with Mugabe, key government ministries and aid organisations involved in humanitarian work. ‒ Sapa-AFP