Global Policy Forum

By Keith Sinclair

A warning that southern Africa faces a humanitarian "disaster'' if desperately needed food aid for millions of people fails to arrive in three months has been issued by the United Nations World Food Programme.

Crop failure because of poor summer rain, combined with political problems and foreign currency shortages, have caused food to run out in at least six countries in the region.

The warning came as concerns were rising that if proposed cuts in the US contributions to the WFP become a reality, the organisation may have to cut food aid for three million people a year.

Jean-Jacques Graisse, WFP's deputy executive director, said that provisions being debated in the US Congress would slash America's participation significantly. The WFP faces potential declines of (pounds) 350m or more in annual contributions from the US, which has long been the largest contributor to the world food aid programme, he said. Last year, the WFP recorded costs of (pounds) 1.3bn, of which roughly (pounds) 830m came from the US.

"We are feeding desperate people. Now is not the time to stop," Mr Graisse told a gathering of international food aid exporters meeting in Kansas City.

The WFP in Africa is gearing up for a massive operation to feed millions of hungry people there, but scarce resources and crumbling infrastructure could hamper efforts.

Judith Lewis, the WFP's regional director for eastern and southern Africa, said: "We still have time to avert a major crisis and avoid hunger-related deaths. If in three or four months nothing happens, we will have an all-out disaster on our hands."

It has sent teams to Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland, to assess how many people need food and how much food.

Results of the assessment would be released around mid-May ahead of an appeal that is expected to go out to international donors in June.

The WFP is already running emergency feeding programmes for 2.6 million people in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe and fears that that number will escalate drastically.

Ms Lewis said families in some of the countries had been reduced to eating roots, berries, and boiled leaves and spoke of reports of men diving for roots in crocodile-infested rivers and women working 12 hours a day for two weeks, carrying water to sell for a handful of maize meal.

More than 500 people in Malawi have died from starvation and related illnesses in the four months to March, according to the country's vice-president Justin Malewezi.

The WFP has said it estimates 1.1 million Zambians need emergency food this year, but the number could rise because some areas affected by drought have still to be assessed.

Zimbabwe, racked by political turmoil since early 2000, may have to import between 1.5 million and 2 million tonnes of maize and aid agencies estimate that more than a million people face food shortages.

The Mozambican government and aid agencies estimate there are tens of thousands of hungry people in the east African nation, but there are no clear figures.

Heavy rain has damaged crops in Lesotho. Pakalitha Mosisili, its prime minister, has announced a state of famine and 34,000 people need food urgently.

Noah Nkhambule, the principal secretary for Swaziland's agriculture ministry, has said there will be a shortfall of more than 80,000 tonnes of maize this year as it tries to meet domestic needs of about 157,000 tonnes.

Ms Lewis said the response to appeals for money and food for the existing feeding programmes had been sluggish.

Once the assessments are completed next month, a regional meeting of stakeholders will be held under the auspices of the United Nations at the end of May in South Africa to plot a strategy to feed the region, she said.

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