WFP sets up centre to coordinate food aid

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is setting up a logistical and information management centre in South Africa to coordinate the movement of food aid to at least 10 million people in the region threatened by starvation. The regional office, expected to be up and running in the next few weeks, would coordinate logistical and transport operations, intervene where local bottlenecks are identified, and liaise with donors and UN agencies, WFP Regional Logistics Coordinator Pedro Figueuredo told IRIN. WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned on Wednesday that millions of people were on "the brink of famine" in Zimbabwe and Malawi. Other countries in the region also faced grave food shortages from as early as June, after two successive years of poor harvests. Nearly four million mt of food will need to be imported over the next year to meet the minimum food needs of the sub-region's population. Almost 10 million people in the famine-threatened countries need immediate emergency food assistance of some 1.2 million mt, the two agencies said. Given the gravity of the findings by assessment teams in the six countries surveyed, FAO and WFP have called on donor governments worldwide to respond quickly and generously with food aid donations to "avoid widespread hunger from developing into a humanitarian disaster". WFP regional spokesperson Brenda Barton told IRIN that donor attention was "now turned to the crisis and they see as we do, the grave crisis which lies ahead". Figueuredo said the key regional ports that would be used to receive food shipments would be Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Durban in South Africa, and Maputo, Beira and Nacala in Mozambique. Port captains, who would work with the local authorities to ensure that vessels are offloaded expeditiously and food is stored or moved out of the ports efficiently, are already in place in Beira, and Nacala (which will supply Malawi). WFP is trying to increase the "discharge rate" - the amount that can be offloaded from a vessel per day - at the ports. Currently that stands at 2,000 mt for Dar es Salaam, Durban and Maputo. Beira and Nacala are slower because they don't have automatic bulk offloading facilities, instead maize would have to be bagged on the quayside. Figueuredo estimated that a 25,000 to 30,000 mt vessel would take at least two weeks to offload, although consignments could be split between different ports. A one-stop shop for customs clearance procedures for trucks and rail traffic between Zimbabwe and Mozambique was already being discussed, Figueuredo said. He added that WFP was also asking for special privileges to reduce border tolls. "The concern is not that we can't feed or transport the food to the beneficiaries," Figueuredo noted. "It's a race against time in the sense that the ports, railways, roads, warehouses, silos - all need to be well-coordinated."