Agencies hopeful of feeding Zim

2008-09-16 08:18

Geneva - Aid agencies on Monday welcomed the new power-sharing government in Zimbabwe as giving hope that they will be able to step up food deliveries to millions of people facing hunger and worse.

"The food situation in Zimbabwe has reached crisis point," said Matthew Cochrane of the international Red Cross. "There are already more than two million people who don't have food, and that number is going to rise to five million, which is about half the country's population, by the end of the year."

Some agencies have been gearing up to provide more aid since the government started easing restrictions recently, but they expressed caution.

"We don't know whether the new power sharing government will make any changes to the rules and regulations around humanitarian assistance," Richard Lee of the UN World Food Programme said.

But Lee said in a telephone interview from Johannesburg that the political settlement should improve political stability and allow the World Food Programme and its partner organisations to work.

Humanitarian situation

In June, President Robert Mugabe's government restricted the work of aid agencies, accusing them of siding with the opposition before a presidential run-off. The ban was lifted last month, but aid agencies say it takes time to gear up.

Kenneth Walker of Care International said, "Any movement toward ending the political crisis in Zimbabwe has got to positively affect the humanitarian situation. So we are very hopeful, very happy, that that kind of progress seems to be under way with this power-sharing agreement."

Cochrane, South Africa-based spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the agency was ready to start food distribution this week under a 27.7 million Swiss franc (about R202m) fundraising appeal launched a month ago.

"We had fairly slow donor response at first, but since then it's really built up quite dramatically so we've been able to procure the initial supplies," he said. "Obviously we need ongoing support. This is a nine-month operation."

No food on the shelves

The programme will target 260 000 of the neediest people across Zimbabwe, Cochrane said.

But many more are in severe need, he added.

"Even people with money can't get food. There's no food on the shelves. The supermarkets we went into, they had mineral water and tea leaves. That was the sum of their supplies."

He said the food shortages hinder the Red Cross's efforts to deliver antiretroviral drugs to HIV-infected people in Zimbabwe, because the lack of food makes them feel too sick when they take the medication.

The Red Cross programme also is distributing seed and fertiliser to 20 000 farmers in hopes of improving next year's harvest, Cochrane said.

The food shortages follow a record poor harvest this year and bad harvest last year.

- AP