Funding shortfall "incredibly serious" - WFP

The funding shortfall for World Food Programme (WFP) aid efforts in Southern Africa is "incredibly serious", the organisation's executive director has warned. In a statement on Friday WFP said "millions of people in Southern Africa will face massive food shortages as early as next month due to significant funding shortfalls. The shortages will be most acute in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, where food needs are greatest". In July WFP appealed for US $308 million to fund the purchase of 540,000 mt of food aid, "enough to feed 6.5 million people until June of next year in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Malawi". However, the agency said "despite repeated appeals, WFP has received only 24 percent of what is required, and has unmet needs amounting to US $235 million". "The situation is incredibly serious," WFP Executive Director James T. Morris was quoted as saying. Morris is also UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Envoy for Southern Africa. "In Mozambique, rations for hundreds of thousands of people may have to be cut - or they may get nothing at all - unless our appeal receives an immediate cash injection. It's already too late for food aid to arrive from abroad to meet needs in October and November," he added. The impact of HIV/AIDS in the region had also worsened the situation. "HIV/AIDS and food shortages go hand in hand in this region," Mike Sackett, WFP Regional Director for Southern Africa, was quoted as saying. "The best way of supporting people affected by the virus is to ensure they are well nourished, but clearly this will not be the case for many people over the coming months unless there's an immediate and sustained response from donors," he explained. WFP said the region had the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world and there has "been an alarming increase in the number of households headed by children, the chronically ill and grandparents". "Furthermore, because productivity in the agricultural sector is especially hard-hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, food shortages and chronic poverty are likely to persist," the organisation warned. WFP noted also that its appeal for Southern Africa, of which Zimbabwe accounts for about two thirds, is based on the assumption that governments will meet commercial import targets. "However, in Zimbabwe's case, a severe lack of foreign exchange is clearly affecting the country's ability to import food. This means that food aid needs may further increase between now and the harvest in April 2004," WFP said. Compounding the food shortage in Zimbabwe was the ongoing "steep economic decline stemming from a combination of factors, including the huge drop in cereal and cash crop production". "Currently Zimbabwe is experiencing an inflation rate of over 400 percent and infant mortality rates have doubled in the country since 1998," WFP commented. A memorandum of understanding, signed on Thursday by the government of Zimbabwe and WFP's Country Director in Harare, is expected to help facilitate the flow of food aid distributed through WFP's 13 NGO implementing partners to millions of needy beneficiaries. "However, given the current funding level, the entire region is expected to experience food pipeline breaks by early next year, which will coincide with the lean season when the number of beneficiaries will be highest and the general food deficit greatest," WFP cautioned.