Feature - Food security worsening in south

The food security situation in Zimbabwe's Matabeleland South province is "critical", the latest report by the UN Relief and Recovery Unit (RRU) has warned. A UN inter-agency team carried out a rapid assessment between 24 and 29 March, to determine the potential gaps in the present humanitarian response and the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in the province, which lies in the southwest of the country, bordering South Africa. "The mission found that the food security situation has worsened ... and the conditions for the people have become critical. This situation is mainly due to rain failure, resulting in water shortages, crop failure and livestock deaths," the Zimbabwe-based RRU said. Although the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and NGOs had made various interventions, these did "not cover all households who may now be described as vulnerable". IRREGULAR GMB DISTRIBUTIONS The report added that resources made available by public works programmes were insufficient and distributions by the state grain monopoly, the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), were irregular. The latest report by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said "although GMB imports account for almost three times the volume of food aid imports, GMB food is hardly visible in the communal areas". "Food aid is catering for up to 70 percent of the rural population, while GMB food supplies have stopped altogether in most rural areas," FEWS NET charged. Meanwhile, the UN mission "noted with concern the sharp decline in water availability for both humans and livestock throughout the province. A significant number of dams have dried up, or will dry up well before the next rainy season. In addition, a substantial proportion of borehole pumps in the province are not functioning due to poor maintenance systems, lack of spare parts, or both," the RRU said. Health services had already been "severely strained as a result of the prevailing economic hardship". The current drought would only worsen the situation, especially for the rural population, placing further constraints on resources. According to health officials in Matabeleland South, cases of severe malnutrition were on the rise. "In addition, it was found that populations will be more susceptible to water-related diseases, due to the severe shortage of safe water for domestic consumption and the lack of adequate sanitation disposal methods. As a result of the higher risk of waterborne and epidemic-prone diseases, there is a need to step up disease surveillance," the unit warned. A set of recommendations would be completed soon for distribution to stakeholders. The RRU also reported that "in what would be its largest effort to date, preliminary figures indicate WFP distributed over 57,000 mt of corn soya blend, maize meal, pulses and vegetable oil to 4.7 million people in 49 districts during the month of March - the height of the lean season". During April, the plan is to provide 50,000 mt of cereals to 4.6 million people. "Complementary food aid pipelines such as those implemented by C-SAFE, Save the Children (UK) and German Agro-Action are expected to meet the needs of an additional 900,000 beneficiaries in April," the unit added. However, WFP faced a shortage of pulses and vegetable oil and would not be able to distribute these commodities in April. WFP distribution figures would drop significantly as of May, which coincides with the end of the maize harvest. CEREAL GAP "This year's maize crop is still being harvested. There are contradicting reports about the size of the harvest and the government of Zimbabwe's final figures will not be available for several weeks yet. Those figures, along with reports from the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC), and the findings of the [Food and Agriculture Organisation] FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission, will form the basis of any future appeal to donors," the RRU noted. More positively, FEWS NET said that the cereal gap for the 2003/04 consumptive year was forecast to be 561,180 mt, much reduced from last year's gap of 1.4 million mt. The RRU noted that donors have been asked to fund the extension of the current emergency operation. "Unfortunately, any immediately forthcoming donor contributions would not be expected to arrive in the country before July," the unit said. FEWS NET raised concern that "urban areas and newly resettled areas continue to be excluded from large-scale food aid programmes, despite evidence of a deteriorating food security situation in these areas". However, the RRU reported that the a pilot urban intervention programme initiated by WFP in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, had recently been replicated at two municipal clinics in the capital Harare. As with the project in Bulawayo, Help Germany was implementing the programme in conjunction with the city of Harare's Health Department, with food from WFP and additional funding by the British development fund, DFID (Department For International Development). "Children who visit these clinics and exhibit weight loss, or whose weight is stagnant, receive a monthly ration of 10 kg of corn soya blend (CSB) and 1 litre of vegetable oil. The fortified CSB helps the children rapidly regain weight. WFP will evaluate the pilot intervention sometime in June and, depending on the findings, may expand the programme," the RRU said. In relation to household vulnerability, the year-on-year inflation rate for the month of February 2003 gained 12.8 percentage points on the January figure, reaching a record high of 220.9 percent, FEWS NET pointed out. "Food inflation accounts for 79 percent of this latest increase," it said.