Local procurement of food aid more effective

World Vision Zambia has chosen to procure commodities for relief aid from local producers in a bid to support local industry and get food to beneficiaries as quickly as possible. Martin Silutongwe, World Vision Zambia's national director, told IRIN on Tuesday that sourcing commodities locally was "quicker and more cost effective". In Nyamphande in the Eastern Province, some 500 km from the capital, Lusaka, World Vision has embarked on a relief programme of supplementary feeding that targets lactating mothers, children under five and orphans. "The relief food, unlike many other relief programmes where food is imported or donated by major agencies, is purchased from local manufacturers," World Vision noted in a statement. "The Chipungu rural health centre is hosting the supplementary feeding exercise, and has an intended 5,944 beneficiaries from within the World Vision programme and 540 from nearby communities. So far 350 orphans are receiving 9 kg of High Energy Protein Supplements (HEPS), 1.5 kg of Zambian sugar fortified with vitamin A, 750ml of Zambian cooking oil and Thobwa, a local energy drink made out of maize or millet powder," the NGO added. Silutongwe explained that it was "much more feasible to buy [commodities] locally ... it just enhances the effectiveness of implementing the supplementary feeding programme, instead of going through the whole process of meeting import regulations and so on". It was important that aid agencies did not undermine local producers by flooding areas with imported relief aid. "Especially in areas where they have experienced reasonable [crop] yields, you really do not want to flood the area with imported food because it becomes a disincentive to local produces. And that is something that the government has been discussing with the NGOs. We would like to support the local producers," Silutongwe added. He noted that locally World Vision was able to procure cooking oil, "other foods like kapenta, which is a type of fish, some maize meal, as well as HEPS and Thobwa". World Vision was also supplying treated mosquito nets, as the area was malaria infested and the targeted beneficiaries were usually more vulnerable to the disease. "The programme officially came to a close on 30 May but there has been a further injection of US $20,000 from World Vision Korea. This will be in addition to the initial US $556,310 that World Vision UK committed to the Disaster Emergency Committee for this relief effort," the organisation said. World Vision was working in conjunction with the district health management board to identify those in critical nutritional need, as well as using local infrastructure for distribution.