Tag: World Food Program

Food Shortages Abate — Except In Zimbabwe

The World Food Program reports that food shortages are coming to an end in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, but such problems continue to worsen in Zimbabwe.

James Morris, head of the World Food Program, told The New York Times,

A serious humanitarian disaster has been averted. Food has been put in place over the last several months in such a way that mass starvation and death has not occurred. We’re seeing significant progress in Malawi and Zambia. We don’t have that same optimism in Zimbabwe.

In Zimbabwe, the WFP’s estimate of the numbers of people facing food shortages jumped to 7.2 million in December, up from 6.7 million in August.

Source:

African food shortages ending everywhere except in Zimbabwe. Rachel L. Swarns, The New York Times, January 31, 2003.

Did Aid Agencies Exaggerate African Famine Threat?

For the past year the United Nations’ World Food Program has been warning of several pending famines in southern Africa, but a report by The Times UK suggests that aid agencies may have exaggerated the extent of hunger in countries such as Zambia.

The Times dispatched reporters to Zambia and could find little evidence of the famine that threatened three million people there according to the WFP. While Zambians are poor, they didn’t appear to be starving.

The Times quotes former Zambian Agriculture Minister Guy Scott as saying, “It looks to me as if the international donor community wanted to see a disaster without being critical enough.”

This is brought into focus by looking at the consequences of Zambia’s much-publicized refusal of food aid from the United States because of concerns over genetically modified organisms. Despite that refusal, however, the mass starvation forecast for Zambia simply never happened. As Scott told The Times,

I thought that the Government’s refusal to accept GM maize was going to lead to a large number of deaths. But it hasn’t. Of course you want to err on the side of caution. But the GM ban, and the lack of any consequences, has raised questions about the severity of the crisis.

Scott tells the Times that he believes aid agencies probably focused on areas worst hit by drought and so overestimated the extent of food shortages.

Source:

Southern Africa famine is ‘exaggerated’. Michael Dynes, The Times (UK), January 22, 2003.

More Warnings about Hunger in Ethiopia and Eritrea

Aid agencies and Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi warned this week that if international aid does not arrive soon, the numbers of people who could die in Ethiopia in 2003 will be even more than died in the 1984 famine which received international publicity and an outpouring of sympathy from Western nations.

“If that was a nightmare,” Zenawi told The Scotsman, “then this will be too ghastly to contemplate. We can’t cope on our own with the requirements of the current drought.”

United Nations World Food Program spokesman Wagdi Othman told The Scotsman,

There are six million people in need of food aid now and we think hat number will increase dramatically next year to ten to 14 million. A lot of people are already hungry and they are threatened by starvation. We will have a clearer picture by next year, but we can’t wait for those figures to come and we have been ringing alarm bells since June. No-one can say that they weren’t aware of this.

Neighboring Eritrea is also hard hit by the droughts, poverty, and continued hostilities between the two countries. At the moment the Eritrean government says that 1.4 million people will face food shortages through the end of next year, and that number is likely to climb to 2.3 million in a country of around 4 million people.

Interestingly, The Scotsman highlights a main problem with international relief efforts, quoting officials who admit that the 1984-inspired relief efforts didn’t even make a dent at long term structural changes in Ethiopia. The Band Aid and Live Aid fund raising efforts raised more than Pounds 110 million, most of which was spent on basic technology,

. . . and Penny Jenden, the former Band Aid chief executive, has since admitted that Africa is littered with the remains of tractors or drilling rigs that nobody knew how to mend.

Current aid efforts aren’t likely to do any better. Until Ethiopia and Eritrea decide to end all hostilities, reform their governments, and tackle poverty and other issues in earnest, the best donor nations can do is simply feed people who would otherwise starve and forget grandiose notions about preventing future famines.

Sources:

Threat to 15 million as new famine hits Ethiopia. Gethin Chamberlain, The Scotsman, November 12, 2002.

Eritrea: Fear of hunger sets in. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, November 10, 2002.

Forty Million in Danger of Starvation

The United Nations recently revised its estimate of the number of people facing food insecurity to 40 million as problems in Africa continue to mount.

In the Horn of Africa alone, 14 million people face starvation unless the World Food Program begins receiving donor aid soon. Ten million of those at risk are in Ethiopia which, like other countries in the region, has been hit hard by drought. According to WFP executive director James Morris,

At least 10 million people will need food aid just in Ethiopia. But if this month’s rains stop early, up to 14 million people there will require urgent assistance.

These figures are large and dramatic and the international community should take notice. Unless we come to grips with this problem very soon we face the real possibility of witnessing a devastating wave of human suffering and death as early as next year.

Morris chalked up the Horn’s problems simply to drought, conveniently ignoring the destabilizing effect of ongoing hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea which has made it difficult to sustain an agricultural industry in either country.

Source:

Aid please as Horn of Africa raises hungry to 40m. James Astill, The Guardian, October 29, 2002.

Cost of Johannesburg Summit

In an op-ed for Fox News, former United Nations Ambassador Kenneth Adelman highlights the bizarre way that the United Nations goes about solving poverty.

At the same time that the World Food Program and other agencies are having difficulties obtaining food aid for starving millions in sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations is sponsoring the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development which will cost a rather unsustainable $55 million mainly to provide a stage for world leaders to make promises and pledges that will never be followed through.

Adelman writes,

It’s another massive waste of money. Another diversion from the real needs of the poor. Another boondoggle for the rich to jet somewhere exotic to gush over their concern for the poor.

Apparently the United Nations’ theory is that if they get enough blowhard politicians on a single stage they can talk world poverty to death.

Source:

A Summit Hard to Stomach. Kenneth Adelman, FoxNews.Com, August 28, 2002.

Zimbabwe Beginning to Experience Sharp Grain Shortage

With grain production falling from 2.04 million tons in 1999-2000 down to a mere 1.48 million tons in 2000-01, Zimbabwe is beginning to feel the effects of the grain shortage created by Robert Mugabe’s tyrannical policies.

Mugabe urged the seizure of white-owned farms despite warnings that this would create massive grain shortages. Then Mugabe pretended that there really was not going to be any grain shortage at all. As a result, Zimbabwe did not stock up on grain for the inevitable emergency.

Now, even if Zimbabwe could afford to buy grain from its neighbors — and it does not have the money to do so since Mugabe has driven the economy into the ground — most of the grain surplus in southern Africa has already been allocated.

So, Zimbabwe has now joined that exclusive group of nations to go begging for food from liberal democracies in the West to prevent it from falling into starvation thanks to the result of its illiberal policies. Robert Mugabe gets to hold on to power and the United States, Great Britain and France get to feed Zimbabwe’s hungry.

The World Food Program is asking for $60 million to feed 600,000 people in Zimbabwe’s countryside. And don’t worry, the World Food Program will almost certainly be back asking for a new round of money to prevent starvation in Zimbabwe next year.

Source:

Grain shortages bit in Zimbabwe. The BBC, January 22, 2002.