Region must prepare for recurring drought, report

Southern Africa should prepare itself for recurring drought, likely to strike at least twice every decade, says a new report. The report, 'Anticipating and Responding to Drought and Emergencies in Southern Africa', was prepared for the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and noted that the region could experience a recurrence of the devastating drought of 2002/03, which resulted in a food deficit of 3.3 million mt. "Market reform in the region has led to more diversified production patterns, more decentralised food distribution systems, and more varied food consumption patterns, at least in urban areas. Each of these changes should reduce the region's dependence on external food aid during droughts," said the report compiled by academics from Michigan State University in the United States. While the general regional situation shows some hopeful signs, the report noted the concerns of some policy experts that many households have become more vulnerable to shocks. "This apparent increase in household vulnerability has become a standard part of the understanding of the 2002-2003 food crisis," the report noted. The impact of HIV/AIDS was the primary cause for household economic fragility. Family financial resources that might be available for food purchases went instead to medical and funeral expenses. On the positive side, expanding early warning systems had saved lives, the report noted. Because weather and crop projections were made prior to the summer planting season, governments and aid agencies were able to set up the infrastructure necessary to bring emergency food relief to those projected to be in need. "Early warning clearly worked during the 2002/03 crisis," the report said. These systems alerted both governments and international donors to community needs, prepared people for the eventuality of food shortages when harvests were beginning to show signs of failure, and regularly updated data on the numbers of people in need. National Vulnerability Assessment Committees (VACs) were coordinated by the Regional VAC of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), to produce a system that represented an "exceptional degree of collaboration among governments in the region, the emergency response committee, and donor agencies," the report found. Some systemic changes in regional agriculture also occurred during the crisis. There was increased cultivation of cassava, a protein-rich tuber more tolerant of dry spells than the region's staple food, maize. Over the past decade, regional maize production has fluctuated due to erratic rainfall. The report noted that national food policies not only reflect the popularity of maize as farmers' crop of choice, despite reported crop failures, but they encourage its production. Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe in particular were found to have maize-centric agricultural policies. "More diversified production and more decentralised food distribution systems should reduce the region's dependence on external food aid during droughts by broadening the consumption base and making it easier to move local production surpluses to populations in need," the report found. Among donors, the realisation was growing that food aid should be considered the last form of response to a food shortage crisis, rather than automatically the first. Researchers claimed that most vulnerable families would rather have cash transfers than food aid. However, "a balanced approach also requires that market proponents and food aid sceptics realise that not providing food aid and other transfers to vulnerable households can push them further into poverty and undercut their ability to use markets to ensure their food security in future crises," the report noted. Improving food production through marketing means was seen as a key element in averting future drought-induced food security problems. Reliable and timely data on market needs was therefore essential. "Operationally, governments need ... to facilitate market response during crises [much more actively], turning to food aid only if markets and market-facilitating measures are expected to be insufficient to meet the immediate food crisis," the researchers concluded. Mozambique managed to keep food prices relatively stable in its market, including the densely populated southern Maputo province, by allowing market forces to work independently, unlike Zambia where food imports were discouraged and prices spiked in urban areas. Although northern Mozambique regularly produces food surpluses, inadequate roads prevented the movement of produce to the south, which experiences chronic food deficits. The government has encouraged northern farmers to export their production, while allowing importers in the south to provide for Maputo markets. The report said local and cross border trade regulations had to be reformed and called on governments to invest heavily to upgrade the professionalism of their customs services. The researchers also questioned the importance of strategic grain reserves, which governments keep to ameliorate the effects of food shortages. "Strategic grain reserves played no role in what was considered a successful response to the 2002/03 crisis," the report said. It criticised the perpetuation of food reserves in government policies, given reports of widespread mismanagement of the reserves in the region, and suggested that governments and donor agencies would better serve the goal of mitigating food shortages by improving market information and early warning systems. The report also recommended improvements to road and rail infrastructure in order to facilitate the movement of food to markets, and more transparent external trade policies.