Food security situation improves

The food security situation in Angola has improved over the past six months, according to the latest vulnerability assessment analysis, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported this week. Between November 2003 and April 2004, a total of one million people were food insecure, 31 percent down on estimates of 1.8 million made earlier this year, according to the assessment by the multi-agency Vulnerability Analysis and Food Aid Working Group. Rain-dependent maize-farming areas proved more vulnerable than areas cultivating the more robust cassava plant, such as northern Angola. "The northern part of the country benefits from the most diversified and rich natural resources, the full recovery of the cassava crop being the cornerstone for the restoration of livelihoods. Vulnerability to food insecurity is mainly linked to limited access to basic services and infrastructures and the limited circulation of goods and people in the remote areas," said the WFP report. The highest concentration of highly vulnerable households was in the central highlands, where heavy and irregular rains washed away maize crops. About 73 percent of the households in the province of Huambo were assessed as highly vulnerable. The central region suffered a "total loss of the harvest in the low-lying areas and a considerable reduction of it in the higher areas," said WFP. In general, the poor transportation system, the dependency on subsistence agriculture, the pressure on agricultural lands and poor soils in combination with limited access to agricultural inputs such as animal traction and fertilisers, "are the main factors which limit the capacity of vulnerable rural households to escape from the spiral of food insecurity". "In addition, people are forced to use negative coping mechanisms. The lack of productive and domestic assets of the recent returnees and resettled justifies a large-scale intervention, which should focus on agricultural extension, asset creation, and income diversification," WFP noted.