SADC commits itself to regional food reserve

The World Bank is conducting a study to help the Southern African Development Community (SADC) develop a Regional Food Reserve Facility (RFRF) Southern Africa agriculture ministers committed themselves to the establishment of a RFRF to ensure food supplies during emergencies at a meeting in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, on 14 February. Almost the entire SADC region is in the grip of a three-year drought. The ministers also reaffirmed the need to strengthen SADC's Early Warning and Vulnerability Monitoring System as an additional measure of ensuring food security. The World Bank study, currently underway in Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania and expected to be completed on 6 March, will determine the capacity of the region to deal with food shortages. "There are three issues that the study is considering - the early warning and monitoring system, the food reserve system, and that of risk insurance," Bantry Chaura, an economist at SADC's Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Unit, told IRIN. "Following the findings of the study, the finer details of whether each country would be required to make a financial or a material contribution to the RFRF will be worked out," Chaura added.