Country faces severe drought - WFP

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says more than 50 million dollars is needed to tackle the severe drought now facing the country. According to the WFP, some 1.4 million Afghans have been affected by continued drought and crop failures. "We are facing a very significant problem. This is said to be the worst drought in living memory, causing severe water shortages and leaving thousands, if not millions, of Afghans unable to meet their basic food needs this year," Maarten Roest, an information officer for WFP, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Wednesday. "It is estimated that over six million people will be affected." He said that, following an emergency appeal by the Afghan government on 1 September, WFP was gearing up to execute drought response activity aimed at assisting the most vulnerable people in 14 provinces in northwestern, southern, southwestern and southeastern Afghanistan severely affected by drought, as well as insecurity and disease. Analysis of the 2004 National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) reveals that 37 percent of the population, almost 6.5 million people, are not able to meet their minimum food requirements and are thus the top priority for assistance. Roest added that they had contributed to the drought response, along with the government and other UN agencies, and that this common effort led to the governmental appeal of 1 September. Out of the US $71 million requested, some $52 million was for WFP's food-related participation in the drought response, he noted. The UN agency's response, targeting 1.4 million people in the affected areas, required an additional maximum of 80,000 mt of mixed food commodities, valued at $52 million, to be distributed from September 2004 until next year's harvest in May 2005, Roest explained. Although the WFP had sufficient food stocks available to respond to the most immediate needs, shortfalls were expected to occur from November 2004 if the additional food requirements were not resourced immediately, he said. The Crop and Food Supply Assessment 2004, which was carried out in July by UN agencies and Afghan government ministries shows that, compared to last year's exceptionally good harvest, crop losses amount to 70 percent in the worst affected areas. WFP official said that the most vulnerable areas lay in southern, western and southeastern Afghanistan, including Nimroz, Kandahar, Paktika, Zabul, Kunar, Logar provinces and the northeastern Faryab area. WFP will target these food insecure areas in the 12 drought affected provinces where food assistance had a comparative advantage, in particular in areas where there was no winter/spring access to markets and where cash interventions were either not operational or were constrained by insecurity, Roest said.