30% of Africa malnourished
2005-07-01 11:59
United Nations - The United Nations's top food aid official on Thursday warned that chronic food shortages in Africa are causing widespread political instability on a continent where over 30% of people are malnourished.
"Hunger is both a cause and an effect of poverty. It is also both a cause and an effect of political conflict," said World Food Programme (WFP) chief James Morris.
The WFP estimates that almost 8.3 million people will need emergency food aid in Southern Africa, where more than four million Zimbabweans, 1.6 million Malawis and 1.2 million Zambians are at risk of facing food shortages.
Despite some "encouraging signs for Africa," such as the G8 debt initiative, global food aid actually dropped by more than 1.8 million metric tons last year, excluding Iraq, Morris said.
Speaking to the UN Security Council, Morris cited studies taken over a 20-year period in Africa, showing that armed conflict led to a 20% decrease in food production and the increased prevalence of hunger.
Morris warned that food is often used as a weapon of war in Africa, as in Sudan, where the WFP has estimated that approximately 3.5 million people will require food aid.
Farmers pushed off their land due to conflict in Darfur have resettled in areas with scarce water supplies and resources, heightening tensions, said Morris, who cited rural to urban migration resulting from famine as another factor undermining political stability in poor countries.
Humanitarian workers are not immune to the dangerous links between food and war as assaults on convoys have caused the WFP to lose more staff than any other UN agency save the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Morris said.
African food production is also being ravaged by Aids, which is robbing the continent of a healthy workforce and plunging millions of children into poverty and hunger, said Morris.
Morris said the combination of Aids, hunger, drought and bad governance are all contributing to eroding political and social stability in Africa.
"A hungry person is an angry person. It is in all of our interests to take away the cause of this anger," Morris said, quoting Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.