Cut in food rations imminent

More than one million hungry Angolans are threatened with reduced food rations next month because of shoratges of basic humanitarian aid, WFP has warned in its latest update.

A poor donor response to an emergency appeal by WFP last year means “the current [food] pipeline is facing imminent shortfalls for the months of March and April,” the agency’s 24-31 January situation report said. It noted that a 15,000 mt consignment of maize and a 5,000 mt load of pulses from the United States are not likely to land in the country before the end of May, forcing WFP to reduce maize, pulses and sugar supplies to people in urgent need of food aid who have already had their rations cut.

“We are facing serious shortages of maize, corn-soya-blend and pulses which are the mainstay of our beneficiaries’ diet,” Ronald Sibanda, WFP Representative in Angola said in December. “We are not asking for luxuries here, just very basic survival food.”

WFP received approximately 60 percent of projected needs for last year. As a result, it was only able to distribute 12,300 mt of food per month instead of the 17,500 mt needed. The number of beneficiaries were cut by 30 percent from the targeted 1.5 million to just one million. “In an emergency, hungry people should be receiving a minimum of 2,100 kilo calories per person each day,” said Sibanda. “In general, we have been able to provide only 1,800 kilo calories.”

The humanitarian community has struggled to provide assistance to Angolans displaced and impoverished by the continuing civil war. Those who have been resettled are expected to grow their own food and become self-sufficient within at least two harvest cycles. But lack of safe arable land, seeds and tools, has slowed the process, the agency noted.

In November WFP appealed for US $155 million to meet Angola’s food aid needs for 2001.