Funding shortfall prompts people to leave Food-for-Work projects

As the World Food Programme (WFP) struggles to make do with limited resources, desperate Zambians are turning elsewhere in search of food, a senior WFP official confirmed. A serious funding shortfall has forced the UN food agency to dramatically cut rations to food insecure communities, who have started abandoning Food-for-Work activities to search for wild food or other piecemeal work, WFP said. According to a Zambia Vulnerability Assessment Committee report in June, more than 1.2 million Zambians were in need of food assistance and the country would need at least 118,000 mt of cereals to bridge the food gap. WFP Country Director David Stevenson told IRIN on Monday that the situation had "worsened", as a lack of funds had complicated the agency's relief effort. "We are currently reassessing the situation by looking at borderline districts that may need assistance. Additionally, we are also evaluating how needs have changed in communities already affected by the food shortages. Right now, we need about US $14 million to ensure that our operation is effective," Stevenson said. Relief agencies have expressed concern over escalating maize prices in the country, pointing out that the spike in prices was exacerbating an already precarious situation. Stevenson explained, "In some parts of the country, especially in the south, the price of maize has increased by between 40 to 6O percent - much higher than prices at the same time last year - and even, in some cases, higher than during 2002/03 food crisis." Faced with rising costs and dwindling supplies of basic commodities, the Zambian government announced earlier this month that it would waive a 15 percent duty on commercial maize to encourage traders to import the staple food. But as the humanitarian community and the government team up to assist the most vulnerable, they also have to contend with a fuel shortage that is grounding their trucks. At the district level, WFP's cooperating partners are reporting a complete standstill of distributions. "The lack of diesel has, in addition, compounded our problems, as there have been some delays in delivering food to remote areas," Stevenson noted. "But we are in discussions with the government to impress upon them to make relief transport a top priority."