The United Nations food agency needs $63-million (â,¬52-million) to feed up to 10-million people in Southern Africa, hit by successive years of drought and some of the world’s highest HIV/Aids infection rates, a UN envoy said on Thursday.
”This is the place in the world where the issues are the most intense and the most people are at risk,” James Morris, the UN secretary general’s special envoy for humanitarian needs in Southern Africa and head of the World Food Programme, told reporters at a briefing.
”It will require a sustained, major, long-term commitment to address the complex of issues that are out there.”
WFP has been providing emergency food in seven Southern African countries, but needs more funding to keep the lifeline going through the lean months until the end of the next harvests in June.
Most of the needy are in Zimbabwe, where WFP has targeted four-million, and Malawi, with three-million. Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland are also on the list.
WFP would also like to start feeding 110 000 orphans and other vulnerable children in a seventh country, Namibia, which has been hard-hit by the HIV/Aids pandemic.
The months before harvest are often hungry ones in Southern Africa, but successive years of drought have pushed many families to their limit. HIV/Aids has also ravaged the agricultural work force, hitting at many countries’ ability to feed themselves.
Good rainfall in some countries has raised hope for better harvests this year, but much will depend on the amount of seed and fertiliser that were distributed during the planting season, Morris said.
”The reality is that many millions of people will face extreme difficulties even if there are better harvests this year,” Morris said in a statement.
”A better harvest will not reduce HIV/Aids rates, or provide education, or supply clean water to an orphaned child, or ensure kids get vaccinated against simple childhood diseases.”
Morris spent two days in Mozambique this week, where he said nearly 40% of the population lives on less than $1 a day and HIV/Aids has cut life expectancy to 41 and 43 for men and women respectively.
On Thursday, he continues to Malawi, where severe storms and flooding have swept through the southern marshlands, destroying crops at the epicentre of the country’s food shortages. – Sapa-AP