Nearly 1.5 million need aid, FAO/WFP

About 1.4 million Angolans are urgently in need of food aid until April 2003, a joint UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) report said on Monday.

This comes as UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Kenzo Oshima, was set to arrive in Luanda on Tuesday to begin a five day visit to Angola.

The Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) office in Luanda told IRIN on Monday that: "The purpose of Mr Oshima's visit is to assess the current humanitarian situation and to call the attention of the international community to the humanitarian crisis in the country.

"During his meetings with representatives of the Angolan government, UN agencies, the diplomatic corps and NGOs, Mr Oshima will also discuss the resettlement of displaced populations and the provision of humanitarian assistance. Field visits to the critical regions of Bie and Moxico provinces are also scheduled during the mission in order to have a first hand view of the humanitarian situation and current relief activities."

Oshima would be leading a UN inter-agency delegation composed of Julia Taft, chief of the UN Development Programme Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Recovery, and Holdbrook Arthur, WFP Regional Director for Central Africa.

The WFP/FAO report, the result of a joint crop and food supply assessment mission to Angola from 15 May to 6 June 2002, blamed the present food insecurity on the recently-ended civil war. The latest figure means more than 14 million people are in need of food aid in drought afflicted Southern Africa.

"The ceasefire agreement signed in April between UNITA and the Angolan government revealed the extent of suffering by people trapped in rural areas by the conflict. Large numbers of malnourished people have since made their way to reception and transit centres and up to 500,000 are reported to be in a critical nutritional situation.

"Angola was spared the drought which affected much of Southern Africa in 2001/02, although rains were late. The 2002 cereal harvest is estimated slightly down on last year [five percent] at 549,000 mt. Production of cassava [an important staple in the north of the country] is estimated at some 5.6 million mt, seven percent higher than last year," the two humanitarian agencies said.

"Peace came too late to have a significant impact" on agricultural production. "In most of the conflict areas, agriculture had fallen to an almost subsistence level, with little or no marketable surplus and very limited trade activity. Self-sufficiency is seldom attained among displaced populations due to the limited access to land and insufficient seed," the report said.

The cereal import requirements for 2002/03 are estimated at 725,000 mt, of which 504,000 mt would be commercial imports and 221,000 mt would be emergency food aid, said the FAO/WFP report.

WFP plans to assist 1.24 million people, including internally displaced persons (IDPs) with insufficient or no access to land, the families of former rebel UNITA soldiers, the vulnerable populations in previously inaccessible areas and refugees returning to Angola. The remaining needy population would have to be supported by other humanitarian agencies.

Of the estimated four million people displaced from their homes since 1998, around two million have been allocated land and no longer depend on food assistance, said the report.

The mission found that some IDPs had already started to return to their homes to prepare land for the next season and to plant dry season crops in the wetland areas.

"Food assistance and agricultural inputs [such as seed and fertiliser] are urgently required for farmers returning to their home areas," the agencies said.

Prior to independence in 1975, Angola was a major exporter of maize and coffee. As a result of nearly three decades of civil war, Angola has had to rely on food imports - both commercial imports of wheat and rice, and food aid, mostly of maize and beans.

The supply of seeds, tools and fertilisers to IDPs and some residents was a major focus of agencies and NGOs during the 2001/02 cropping season. However, the FA/WFP mission has urged that the Angolan government improve customs clearance for agricultural inputs to avoid delays in getting these to farmers.