WFP needs funds for Christmas
2004-12-22 14:39
Johannesburg - As the rest of the world spends the holidays in feasts and indulgence, the "lean season" looks to be worse than usual for hungry people in Africa, the World Food Programme said on Wednesday.
"Unless we receive immediate cash donations we will have to cut rations even further, and the traditional lean season - from January to March - will be particularly tough," said Mike Sackett, WFP Regional Director for southern Africa.
He said the WFP had received only 2.5% of the funds it required to continue its work in southern Africa.
They would run out of food for Lesotho by the end of January, and other countries in the region in the following weeks, Sackett said:
"By the beginning of March we won't have any cereals left."
He pleaded with donors across the world to leap into the breach and produce the cash.
"Cash contributions are essential. Food shipments from abroad would not arrive in time to help the most vulnerable people, and using cash for local food purchases also benefits local economies."
Steadily cutting rations
He said the WFP had been steadily cutting rations to more than 2.8 million people, many of them living with HIV/Aids, over the last six months.
"There will be serious health and nutritional repercussions if people have to accept a further reduction in their meagre ration."
Sackett appealed to the world to think of those who are unable to meet their basic food needs - often through factors like war, natural disasters, and bad governance, that are completely beyond their control.
"While many of us will be sitting down with our families and friends to celebrate Christmas, millions of men, women and children face a very bleak time."
Japan, the Netherlands, the European Union, and Switzerland had all made contributions to the programme for the year ahead, Sackett said - but combined, this was only a fraction of the funds needed.
The five countries in the southern African programme are Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zambia, but Sackett pointed out that people in other countries, like Angola and Namibia, were equally needy.
Although the situation seems dire, the WFP gave food aid to a record 104 million people in 81 countries in 2003.
On top of everything the organisation was in debt. Twelve million dollars of emergency loans taken out to keep the feeding programmes going needed to be repaid.
"WFP needs an immediate US$63 million to meet food aid needs in the five countries during the first quarter of 2005."
- SAPA