Despite food aid, Malanje remains an emergency

A “nutritional emergency” continues in the northern Angolan city of Malanje, despite three months of uninterrupted food supplies to the formerly besieged government-held provincial capital, the humanitarian community has warned. During the past three months, food distribution by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and their implementing partners has seen malnutrition in children under five decrease from 32 percent in June to 21 percent in September. “However, the present level of 21 percent global malnutrition still signifies a severe nutritional problem,” a report by the aid agency Concern said. The estimated population of Malanje is currently around 400,000, of which some 210,000 are registered as displaced, with the most vulnerable among them receiving a WFP ration. But, according to the Concern study released last month, the continued prevalence of malnutrition appears to be related to exclusion, “whereby needy families are excluded from the general ration.” According to the study, ‘Targeting the vulnerable in Malanje: A strategy for selective feeding’ given the amount of food entering Malanje, “the existence and the apparent extent of the exclusion is hard to justify. The resources to tackle the problem are available.” The Concern report suggests that some of the factors promoting the misallocation of rations include: Inaccurate and insufficient registration; the “inexperience” of some of WFP’s NGO implementing partners; corruption and diversion; the targeting of only the displaced in food distribution; and a poor understanding of the factors promoting vulnerability. “The problem of malnutrition in Malanje is linked to the confusion over registration,” a UN humanitarian official told IRIN on Wednesday. The original registration of the displaced was based on a hut count, “but the elderly and the vulnerable don’t have the capacity or energy to build, so they weren’t included in the registration and so they don’t get food.” Humanitarian agencies are preparing to run a re-registration exercise to more accurately identify the needy, and also prevent the alleged diversion of food by traditional authorities within some displaced communities. With the distinction between displaced and residents in nutritional terms now all but extinct in Angola, the UN now also increasingly recognises all those in need as “war affected” and eligible for assistance.