From Africa Recovery, Vol.16 #1 (April 2002), page 32

SOUTHERN AFRICA
Food shortages loom

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warns that millions of people in Southern Africa may face famine conditions in the months ahead, unless considerably more food aid arrives in the region. "Donor response to repeated WFP appeals has been sluggish," the agency noted at the end of March. "If we do not get enough food to feed 2.6 million people right now, what will happen when potentially millions more need our help in the months ahead?" asked Ms. Judith Lewis, WFP regional director for East and Southern Africa.

The WFP says $70 mn is required to buy 146,000 metric tonnes of food to ward off severe hunger in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Preliminary forecasts for the April/May harvests indicate another year of low maize production, following last year's poor harvest. In Zimbabwe, normally a food surplus country, erratic rains, an economic downturn and disruption of the farming sector due to land conflicts mean the country has to import more than 1 million tonnes of maize. The expected surpluses in neighbouring South Africa will be insufficient to meet that need. Only 30 per cent of the $60 mn WFP has requested for Zimbabwe has so far been contributed.

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