Africa: 'Deadly cocktail of need'
2005-06-03 09:58
Dakar - Hunger pangs are growing among Africa's most vulnerable, and relief officials say they're increasingly unable to help.
Much of the world's poorest continent is entering its annual "lean season" — the months leading up to harvest when food stores dwindle. Calls for international assistance are multiplying, but funding shortfalls and endemic strife are hitting efforts by humanitarian workers to respond.
"Essentially, we are really concerned because of drought, lack of harvest, civil war, or insecurity in general: it all comes down to a deadly cocktail of need," said Caroline Hurford, a spokesperson for the United Nations (UN)'s World Food Programme (WFP), which spearheads food-distribution efforts — but is suffering serious funding shortfalls.
Aid workers say the plight of Africa's hungry has been overshadowed by the massive aid outpouring after the Asian tsunami —a phenomenon known as "donor fatigue".
Many empty, hungry stomachs
One in three sub-Saharan Africans don't get enough nourishment each day, the UN says.
In Central Africa's Uganda, the UN made an urgent appeal on Wednesday for food worth $45m to help more than three million Ugandans, half of them victims of a 19-year civil war.
WFP official Ken Noah Davies said existing supplies would run out by the end of June, the start of the dry season. Davies said. "We have a huge shortfall of 90 000 tons."
In nearby eastern Congo, people fleeing ongoing strife are hiding in the jungle, where aid workers can't reach them.
Some feeding programmes for refugees in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have been curtailed due to lacking funds.
Funding shortfalls are also looming for southern Sudan, while nearly three million are displaced inside in the western Darfur region, where they've been driven from their homes by strife.
Shocking statistics
Worldwide, the WFP said last month it urgently needs $315m to meet the needs of 2.2 million refugees sheltering in camps, 75% of whom are in Africa.
In the south, where HIV/Aids is particularly ravaging populations, some crops are failing because farmers are sick. Similarly, development schemes meant to help grow African economies and break a dependence on international aid are undercut by hunger and its corollary, disease.
Zimbabwe said on Thursday it didn't ask for and doesn't need the food aid the UN has promised, insisting it could provide for its own people amid a mounting humanitarian crisis rooted in politics.
Head of the WFP James Morris said between three and four million Zimbabweans will need food aid in the next year.
In West Africa, locusts devastated crops across the area just south of the Sahara desert known as the Sahel.
In Mali, 10% of the country's 11 million inhabitants are at risk as the country struggles to make up for a cereal deficit of 350 000 tons, officials said.
- AP