Crisis Worsens in southern Africa
Severe food shortages, high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates, and rising poverty levels have combined in southern Africa to threaten the lives of 14.4 million people.
According to the World Food Program’s latest drought assessment, the number of people desperately in need of food in the six southern African countries affected by the food deficit – Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe – has risen 12 percent or 1.6 million people since its last assessment earlier this year.
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| People lined up to buy chicken at a poultry processing farm outside Harare. Food is so expensive and scarce that people are now used to standing in long lines to buy it, when any food is available. By: Fidelis Zvomuya |
More worrying is that unless urgent steps are taken to provide people with seeds, fertilizers, tools and draft animals or tractors, the food crisis is likely to persist even if the region gets a good rainy season in early 2003. “We are looking at a planting season starting at the end of October through to December. If we don’t get seeds and fertilizer to these people, we will continue to see deficits at the household level, let alone at the commercial level, in terms of producing food in these countries,” says Judith Lewis, the World Food Program (WFP) Regional Director for East and Southern Africa.
Aid agencies agree that compared to earlier food crises, the current crisis has been worsened by the high HIV and AIDS prevalence rates in Southern Africa. Carolyn McAskie, Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says AIDS is decimating the productive generation of Southern Africa. “You have rates as high as 20, 25, 30 even 35 percent of populations affected in some areas. This means that the health services are under enormous stress in coping with sick people, and because they too are losing a cadre of workers in that productive age group. The education system is also under stress. You have children collapsing in school from hunger, and orphans who can’t come to school because their parents are dead from AIDS. On the food side, AIDS patients along with other sick people need a different kind of nutrition to cope with their illness,” she said.
NGOs working on AIDS in Zimbabwe say that so desperate is the food crisis that people have been lining up to be tested for HIV in the hope that they would be found positive, which would qualify them for preferential food relief. Lewis says there is an urgent need to address the special food requirements of people living with AIDS within the context of the drought. In discussions with people living with AIDS, they told her food was what they needed above everything else, “Their first request is for food. The people say that food is probably the first and best drug.”
Another aspect of the present crisis also compounded by HIV/AIDS is the high drop-out rate among school children because of food shortages. This is particularly high among children orphaned by AIDS who have to forage for food instead of going to school, or they simply cannot afford school fees. The poor are also pulling their children out from school. Parents must make the drastic choice of paying for food rather than school fees.
Unlike earlier drought relief programs in Zimbabwe where the government provided free food handouts, in the current situation people must pay for it. But because of worsening poverty levels (up to 80%of the population), and soaring prices in an environment of hyper-inflation of over 135%, fewer and fewer people can afford to buy the food even when it is available.
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| Commuters wait patiently for bus transportation in Harare. The economic crisis in Zimbabwe is impeding imports of food and spare parts for transportation. By: Fidelis Zvomuya |
While the food shortages in Southern Africa can be treated as an emergency requiring an emergency response, the problem will not be resolved permanently unless the underlying problems of poverty are addressed. It is no coincidence that the most affected countries are also the poorest in the region and therefore least able to cope with emergencies.
The absence of social safety nets, mixed with worsening poverty levels and HIV/AIDS burdens, make it very difficult for communities to cope with the present crisis. Health systems, already overburdened, underfunded, and understaffed must cope with diminishing public resources in the face of the HIV and AIDS onslaught. Water and sanitation problems are also coming to the fore as a result of recent years’ flooding and the present drought.
The WFP says it is “seriously short” of money to meet the non-food needs, including health, agricultural inputs, education, water and sanitation, as donor governments have been less forthcoming on this. “It is also a health crisis, an education crisis and water and sanitation crisis. The vicious cycle of poverty in these countries certainly underlies many of these problems … people’s coping mechanisms are being stretched to no end,” Lewis says.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) says as of August, Zimbabwe’s planned food imports stood at 1.29 million tonnes leaving an import gap of about 1.06 million tonnes, for which more food aid pledges were required. Current projections in Zimbabwe indicate a maize deficit of 1.98 million tons for the 2002/2003 marketing year. In Zimbabwe, the WFP initially identified 558,000 people as being in urgent need of food aid. Following its second national survey it has revised the figure upwards to six million.