Donors 'avert food crisis'
2005-12-20 10:13
Washington - International donors have averted a famine this year in southern Africa, where some 12.5 million people are in need of food aid, the majority of them in Zimbabwe and Malawi, US and UN officials said on Monday.
"Because of the efforts of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and planning by (...) the US Agency for International Development (USAid) we were able to get the food there in a timely manner to avert a crisis," Michael Hess, assistant administrator of the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance at USAid, said.
He said the US was pledging another 68 000 metric tons of food to the six affected countries, bringing total US food assistance since June to more than 370 000 tons, which meets more than a third of the emergency need.
Hess said Zimbabwe and Malawi alone had 10 million people in need of food assistance.
WFP executive director Jean-Jacques Graisse said his organisation was racing against time to ensure sufficient food aid is delivered to those two countries as well as Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia to prevent mass suffering before spring 2006.
He and Hess said the food crisis in the region was compounded by the HIV/Aids crisis and prolonged drought and poor harvests.
"Southern Africa is unfortunately a crisis that is not going to go away that rapidly," Graisse said.
"The combination of droughts, HIV/Aids and government issues really makes it one of the most vulnerable regions in the world."
He said life expectancy in many of the countries concerned was in the 30s, "numbers not seen since the Middle Ages in Europe".
Graisse said he felt confident that the food would reach those most in need thanks to advance planning and co-ordination with the governments concerned.