Global Policy Forum

Edited by Duane Heath

Donor governments have failed to come forward with any money to help more than half-a-million women and children in Namibia.

Geneva - Donor governments have failed to come forward with any money to help more than 600 000 women and children in Namibia survive the combined effects of erratic weather, severe poverty and a worsening Aids epidemic, UN aid agencies said on Tuesday.

"We've received nothing. Not one cent," said Christiane Berthiaume, spokesperson for the World Food Programme. "This is one of the world's forgotten crises."

"This is sad, because Namibia is a country that rarely asks for international aid. When it does, it's because the situation is really desperate."

Two months ago, WFP and Unicef - the UN children's agency - launched an appeal for $5.8m to help Namibian authorities tackle a drought-fueled crisis.

The country suffers deep poverty and perennial food deficits, compounded by three years of drought followed by flooding and the HIV/Aids pandemic. More than 640 000 people - one third of Namibia's population of 1.8 million - need food aid, according to the government.

Local authorities plan to assist 530 000 people from their meager resources, but need international help to feed the rest over the next four months, said Berthiaume.

Unicef aims to help the government provide insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria, expand immunisation campaigns, undertake Vitamin A distribution and improve nutritional surveillance. The operation targets 500 000 people, mostly youngsters, in a country where acute malnutrition in children under five is as high as 15 percent.

"It's incomprehensible that the international community has failed to finance an appeal like this," said Unicef spokesperson Damien Personnaz.

Namibia's current food crisis has also been exacerbated by unemployment of over 30 percent, as well as spiraling HIV/Aids rates.

HIV/Aids has spread rapidly across Namibia, with infection rates soaring from just 4 percent in 1992 to 22 percent - the seventh highest rate in the world. Life expectancy has plunged from 63 years to 40 years over the same period.

Increased adult mortality has led to a steep rise in the number of orphans. At least 120 000 children are estimated to have lost one or both parents as a result of Aids. By 2010 the number will likely reach 250 000, said Personnaz.

Lack of food makes Aids sufferers even weaker, making it tough for them to work their fields and feed their families, he noted.

Residents of the country's remote northeastern Caprivi region - where HIV rates are 43 percent - have lost most of their livestock to flooding and also face increased risk of risk of malaria and other waterborne diseases.