WFP, UNICEF reissue appeal after getting no response

Two United Nations agencies in Namibia on Wednesday reissued an urgent appeal to the international community for funds to assist some 600,000 orphans, vulnerable children (OVC) and women suffering from the combined effects of drought, chronic poverty and the worsening HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Neither the World Food Programme (WFP) nor the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) received any contributions in response to their US $5.8 million emergency appeal for Namibia in March.

"We are disappointed at the lack of support, especially since the appeal was meant to assist those who do not have any other means of supporting themselves. These beneficiaries are among the neediest. Since we have not received any contributions, we have not been able to feed anyone in May," WFP Namibia head, Abdirahman Meygag, told IRIN.

He said WFP expected to distribute 8,000 mt of food to 111,000 rural children and their families in the six worst-affected northern districts of the country. The UN food agency has again appealed for US $5.2 million to fund emergency operations over the next six months.

Meygag added that the situation in the northern Caprivi region had been exacerbated by extensive flooding. "Already faced with consecutive poor harvests and high rates of HIV, the recent floods have made the situation desperate and urgent," he said.

An estimated 43 percent of people in Caprivi are living with HIV/AIDS, and more than 20 percent of those aged under 19 have been left orphaned by the disease. Across the country, at least 120,000 children have lost their parents as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Namibia.

As part of the emergency appeal, UNICEF requested US $616,000 to assist some 500,000 people until August but, like WFP, had not received any assistance.

"The biggest concern is the impact of HIV/AIDS on the capacity of families to produce food. The contributions were expected to be channelled towards implementing long-term interventions to address the impact of HIV/AIDS on the nutritional status of young children," UNICEF country representative Khin-Shandi Lwin said.

She noted that UNICEF required the funds to bolster efforts by the government to provide insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria, expand immunisation campaigns, undertake Vitamin A distribution and improve nutritional surveillance.

A recent UN mission to Namibia found that acute malnutrition in children under five was as high as 15 percent in some areas.

According to Meygag, one of the reasons for the sluggish response to the appeal was the perception that Namibia was a middle-income country, "which could feed and provide for its own people".

He said: "In the past Namibia has not called for international aid, and there are perceptions that the government has the capacity to intervene when there are food shortages. But the series of droughts and the HIV epidemic has seriously compromised existing resources, and this is why the authorities find themselves struggling to cope."

Meygag noted that "perhaps preoccupied with other humanitarian emergencies in the world, donors had forgotten about the situation in Namibia".