SystemWatch

Hunger Keeps People Poor
By Annette Ifill

The world’s poorest nations were repeatedly hit by both natural and man-made emergencies in 2000, and the combination of these two emergencies not only has a major impact on the poorest but all too often can prevent the humanitarian relief community from reaching those in desperate need of assistance.

According to the Annual Report 2000 of the World Food Programme (WFP), the increasing number of humanitarian hot spots around the world demanded help from the Programme (accounting for almost half of its total expenditures) and the international community. During 1997-2000, the number of drought victims assisted by WFP more than quadrupled, and events last year proved that international aid can make a difference when resources are provided in time. The Programme received $1.75 billion and shipped 3.7 million tons of food worldwide, of which 117,000 tons were on behalf of donors. Victims were often women, children and the poverty-stricken - those least equipped to look after themselves.

FAO Photo/A. Proto

WFP, with other UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), showed that a massive relief effort could avert a famine and save millions of lives. Several years of insufficient rains and resultant poor harvests had produced a severe drought in the Horn of Africa. Migration and cross-border movements put a further strain on resources as people searched for new pasture, better conditions and outside help. Catherine Bertini, WFP Executive Director and the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, was instrumental in alerting the international community and mobilizing substantial resources to address food and non-food needs, and within months the UN relief intervention had helped turn the tide in that region.

The WFP emergency operation fed 180,000 drought-affected poor rural people in Nicaragua and Honduras, and supported reconstruction and rehabilitation there. When the worst floods in recent history hit Mozambique in February 2000, a massive helicopter search-and-rescue operation pulled victims from treetops and assisted thousands stranded on crowded islands without food and clean water. WFP provided emergency food aid to 700,000 flood victims in Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Viet Nam, and aid reached 900,000 of the poorest people caught in the floodwaters of Bangladesh. It also assisted in the rehabilitation of local infrastructure damaged by flooding through food-for-work schemes.

WFP delivered humanitarian aid to refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in countries in conflict and civil unrest: Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territory, Angola, the Great Lakes region (Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda), Guinea, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Northern Caucasus, Chechnya, the Balkans and Colombia.

The Programme’s reputation for getting food aid to some of the world’s most remote areas was tested in Nepal, where in some of its most inaccessible northern mountain districts WFP was able to deliver food, negotiating 1,300 kilo-metres of highway stretching from Kathmandu (the capital, in south Nepal) through China and then to Humla in the north of Nepal. In addition, its five-year food-for-work projects are helping more than one million Nepalese climb out of poverty.

UNHCR Photo

Demining and mine-awareness campaigns have also been incorporated into WFP emergency programmes to ensure the safe return of IDPs, and WFP has offered its food distribution sites as locations for mine-awareness activities. In Ethiopia, for instance, these campaigns were integrated into emergency programmes to ensure the safe return of IDPs.

In recognizing that HIV/AIDS is both a cause and a consequence of food insecurity, the Programme in 2000 began to address the devastating effects of the pandemic, focusing on families whose food security has been compromised by the disease and supporting prevention activities.

If we are to halve the number of undernourished people in the world by the year 2015 - the target agreed upon at the World Food Summit and reiterated in the Millennium Report - then more needs to be done, and our efforts must include everyone, the Annual Report states. The Programme’s ability to effectively serve the world’s hungry poor hinges on its global reach, its presence through development projects, logistical expertise and dedicated staff who often work in difficult and dangerous conditions.

In a joint foreword to the Report, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf urge a better understanding of the link between hunger and poverty: “Hunger is caused by poverty, but it also keeps people poor. Currently, the World Food Programme is working to draw the attention of the international community to the necessity of incorporating food security issues into the heart of poverty eradication programmes.”

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Fact Sheet: WFP assisted the poorest in 83 countries last year

36 million victims of natural disasters 7 million victims of wars and civil unrest 18 million beneficiaries in protracted relief and recovery operations (PRROs) 22 million people in development programmes Food provided amounted to nearly 3.7 million tons 649,000 tons for development projects 1.958 million for emergency operations (EMOPs) 936,000 tons for PRROs 117,000 tons for bilateral operations Operational expenditures amounted to $1.49 billion 14% for development activities 86% for relief activities 91% for development in low-income, food deficit countries, including least developed countries (LDCs) 50 per cent for development in LDCs

Contributions reached $1.75 billion $226 million to development $1.07 billion to emergency operations (including Immediate Response Account and Special Operations) $381 million contributed to PRROs $70 million for other purposes Operational activities 189 development activities in 59 countries ($215.2 million) 185 emergency operations in 64 countries ($778.7 million) 93 PRROs in 39 countries ($424.9 million) Commitments for 97 operational activities include Two new country programmes, valued at $227.5 million, providing 835,383 tons of food

Focus: Democratic Republic of the Congo On 31 July 2001, a WFP-chartered barge with enough food to feed 32,000 people sailed down the Congo river destined for tens of thousands of people living on the frontline of the war in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in the north-western province of Equator. The barge travelled in convoy with the “Boat for Peace”, which carried 650 tons of food, medicine and seeds to the town of Mogalo. They were escorted by UN peacekeepers. WFP reported that the people there “have nothing and there is nothing left in their towns and villages. Everything has been looted, burned and destroyed. This food is a vital lifeline.”

Focus: El Salvador Farmers in drought-hit El Salvador have lost all their crops and almost exhausted their food reserves. Eighty per cent of the maize crop has been lost in four areas. Many of the farmers whose crops were destroyed were also victims of Hurricane Mitch, which decimated food reserves in 1998. Many farmers have been understandably reluctant to run the risk of a third disaster by investing in seed for the next harvest. “Now they face a dilemma”, WFP reported, “either to sell off their assets, like chickens and cows, to pay for more seed or to keep their last remaining source of nutrition and have no seed to plant for the next harvest.”

Focus: Angola The World Food Programme reported on 7 September 2001 that at least one million Angolans face the prospect of serious malnutrition in the coming months unless donors pledge more food aid. About one million people displaced by war are dependent on food supplied by the United Nations agency. The civil war, which has been going on for 25 years between the Government and the UNITA rebels, has left about two and a half million internally displaced people in Angola. Frequent raids on farms and villages force people to abandon their land and seek refuge in the main towns, which are secure enough for aid organizations to operate.

Focus: Liberia Food was delivered to over 30,000 internally displaced Liberians who fled to escape the ongoing civil war in their country, where they have been living in partially destroyed buildings, warehouses or the open air. In the areas directly affected by armed incursions, humanitarian agencies are unable to monitor the distribution of relief items to ensure they are not diverted to combatants.