Steps out of the food crisis

In spite of decades of continued efforts to attain food security, famine continues to stalk sub-Saharan Africa. In six southern African countries more than 14 million people face critical food shortages which the UN's World Food Programme has called "the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world today". In a recent report titled 'Fighting Famine in Southern Africa: Steps Out of the Crisis', the International Food Policy Research (IFPR) institute argued that famine mitigation should be seen in terms of three stages: immediate relief, recovery and short-term development, and the initiation of long-term development. Although the causes of the current food crisis are complicated and vary in each country, at the core are drought, a series of floods and the continuing lack of resources to address long-term food security issues, the report said. It also pointed to chronic poverty and inadequate agricultural policies as contributory factors. If future famines were to be prevented it was equally important that interventions involved inter-organisational cooperation, good governance and steps for long-term development, the report said. The greatest immediate need was to deliver emergency food aid. "When a famine is already underway, governments and aid agencies must make food available to the regions and people most affected as fast as possible, even if some regions are difficult to reach. Food should be distributed to people where they live and the formation of camps should be avoided as much as possible," the US-based IFPR said. Weakened by hunger many people were unable to travel to food aid sites. The objective of immediate relief was to minimise the various effects of famine, which include dislocation and destitution in addition to mortality. Also, targeting the most adversely affected areas first was essential. "In many cases, only certain regions of a country experience a famine, or experience it more severely than do others, due to localised environmental calamities, higher pre-famine levels of hunger and malnutrition or other factors. "In fact, if food shortages are severe in only certain areas, a national famine mitigation strategy can be more effective if it targets these areas with food aid, and addresses the threat of hunger in other areas through other programmes," the report suggested. To ensure that the most disadvantaged households are targeted, standardised and formal guidelines for distribution should be employed. To assist with recovery, the report called on regional governments to implement various policies that would not only lead people further away from famine but also contribute to development in the future. One of the programmes that has proven to be successful was labour-intensive public works projects for the poor. The projects would offer short-term income to the poor and also serve as a safety net. "Food-for-work schemes would be an appropriate intervention for certain regions within the southern African countries, where prices are currently very high but extreme shortages at the household level do not yet exist. Poor infrastructure, long distances to markets and the general lack of development of private markets in the region are additional reasons why payment should be made in food rather than cash," the report said. Additionally, during the recovery stage governments could do more to encourage greater private-sector participation in distributing food. For example, government food marketing systems, such as Malawi's ADMARC, could have private sellers supply government-purchased grain in areas that it did not serve, the report suggested. However, once some stability returned, the IFPR identified the need for the prompt provision of seeds, fertiliser, and other agricultural inputs to jumpstart agricultural production in the next planting season. Governments also needed to provide incentives to small farmers to produce staple food crops, otherwise "if small farmers believe that commercial crops will bring higher incomes, they may not plant staple crops. "Improving staple crop yields in the next season would help significantly to bring a country out of a famine since a large number of people depend on these foods, while providing basic agricultural technology in the form of inputs to small farmers is the path by which to obtain agricultural production increases in the near future," the report said. The IFPR concluded that countries with a history of drought should pay heed to famine early warning systems, as well as maintain cost-effective food reserve systems and rapid-response crisis-management teams. "While specific programmes are being designed for famine mitigation, certain broader issues also need to be considered for both mitigation and prevention. These are: monitoring and evaluation of interventions, the relations between the government, NGOs, the private sector and donors, and governance and policies for long-term food security and famine prevention," the report noted.