Interview with WFP regional director Judith Lewis

The World Food Programme on Monday said it needed US $507 million to fund close to one million mt of food for 10.2 million people in six countries in Southern Africa until the next main harvest in March 2003. Recent country assessments in Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland have shown that 12.8 million people are in need of food aid and a recent Angolan assessment has added another 1.4 million people. The situation in Namibia is still being analysed. IRIN spoke to Judith Lewis, World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, about the WFP's work. She commented on allegations over the politicisation of food aid in Zimbabwe, the role regional governments need to play to assist relief deliveries, and the danger of the situation deteriorating. Question: Is there a deadline for the appeal to be most effective? Answer: We think that we have to have food pre-positioned before the rainy season [which begins in October in most Southern African countries] because so many of these people live in very remote areas and they are going to be cut off and then the only option would be to go to more expensive airdropping and those types of delivery mechanisms. Our strategy is that we should have one month's stock in-country, two months' stock prepositioned and one month coming on the high seas, so that we can plan, so that you have constant pipelines of food rather than breaks where we have to stop and it causes too much disruptions. Q: What is the involvement of the governments affected by the crisis in what you are doing. How do they help? Elaborate on any difficulties if any? A: Part of United Nations response is always to be in response with government. The mission I've just been on with Mr [Kenzo] Oshima, [UN Emergency Relief Coordinator], this is the first question that he asked: 'tell me what your strategy is to deal with this crisis' and certainly, on the food side we've built all of our response based on the government doing their part on the commercial side. Commercial inputs are key to this response so we have to monitor very closely if they're going to be able to have enough money, foreign exchange to bring in commercial [imports] and we're going to have to monitor that. In Zimbabwe and in Malawi, there clearly is an internal co-ordination structure that's put together by the government. They are taking the lead in bringing the efforts together. Some governments are going to be more effective than other governments but certainly it is exciting to see how proactive the government in Malawi was in terms of bringing everybody together. They had a very realistic structure in place and they want to work with all the partners. So that is the first question we always ask, what do you do and what is your contribution to this crisis? So on the food side, yes they are trying to import food, the issue would be whether or not they have enough foreign currency to meet the gap. And then on the co-ordination side certainly they have to be responsible for that. Q: How do you prevent corruption on a grand scale from preventing truck loads going missing, or on a smaller scale where food might be sold on a market. Is it okay for somebody to take that bag of food aid to the market if they need the cash for something else? A: Sure, WFP has never proposed that we can cover all their needs and families need other stuff than grain and if they can sell part of that to get soap, I mean, my goodness, the scabies business, it's hygiene ... Now we have a problem if the man sells it and goes and buys beer. You can't prevent that. I mean we can't follow, you can't monitor or track that food into somebody's mouth but certainly part of our advocacy and of our NGO partners as well, is to encourage the families to eat that food. But it's going to happen. We see this in every operation around the world that some of it will end up in the market and that's regrettable that people aren't eating the food but on a small scale it's going to happen. Now, in terms of how do we keep the transporters from driving off with the truck. We have security bonds with transporters so this means that if they lose that truck they have to pay for it or if they lose that cargo they have to pay for it - it's an insurance policy. Now, can people come with guns and take bags of grain. Yes, it's possible. So those kinds of diversions happen and we call those losses and we track them so that we can go back to the donor and say okay, we lost 150 mt or 50 mt or whatever it is because accidents will happen, there is spillage, there are breaks in bags. We have monitors that go to the distribution sites, we work with our NGOs and we keep very meticulous records of what's distributed. Q: What practical steps do you take to prevent the politicisation of food? A: The only country we have had that problem in is Zimbabwe and I think we need to put it in context. In Zimbabwe you have a very polarised press so I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Now it is clear that there is some confusion in reporting on what is going on on the ground. How much of it is true, I don't know. The World Food Programme has only in the last three or four weeks distributed over 12,000 mt of food. That is compared to 232,000 mt distributed by the government. So what happens is they've seen food moving around, they've seen certain groups getting privileges and receiving food. That food is not the food that has been resourced out of the World Food Programme. We have a zero tolerance policy for any type of food being used as any type of weapon, let alone a political weapon. Hungry people don't have politics. So we're very strict. The NGOs that we work with go through an extensive training and we train them in our criteria in how we decide who's poor and how these people qualify. We take a long, long time and we've been very meticulous in trying to articulate this and then gone to the local level to make sure they understand. We have had one or two incidences where it has been a problem. In one case we've suspended the distributions until we sorted out the criteria. In another we didn't start the distribution until all of it was sorted out. So we follow up immediately if there is a problem and we are prepared to take the steps necessary to ensure the integrity of the food. So, no, it's not a tough [question] for me, we have been very clear, very articulate and we have been very clear with government as well. Q: What role does the Zimbabwe government's land reform policy play in the food crisis? A: From our assessments it was measured that the commercial farming sector was down by about 59 percent so clearly when you have that kind of cut in the production of food that would normally be available for export, that had to contribute to the overall crisis. The disruption of the commercial farming, and then you have a natural shock [of drought] on top of it, it did contribute to this. And that [the 59 percent] was down from a bad year last year. The same amount of acreage was planted overall, but with the drought it significantly disrupted production. Q: Is the Grain Marketing Board's monopoly a problem? A: Yes. The issue is that it is linked to the government's ability to be able to keep enough food in the market and to provide subsidies which are necessary according to the government policy. So yes, we think that's part of the problem. Not trying to make a pronouncement one way or another but we do think that is one of the things that is going to prohibit any type of public or private enterprises and to be able to get food available and on the shelves for people who still have assets. And what's very worrying now is that not only are poor people suffering because they couldn't afford to buy food anyway, but you have another sector of the population who still could afford to buy food but there's nothing available so that just exacerbates and compounds the complexity. Q: Southern African Development Community (SADC) representatives are going to Maputo on Friday to discuss their response to the crisis. Have they been slow in responding? A: No, I think we've been talking very much with SADC. There is a role for SADC - I think there are a number of policy issues and facilitation roles that SADC can play and I think their leadership is very important. The other message that I received from SADC is that they really would like to let the WFP and their other partners look at the operation from the food side. To let us really do the logistics coordination and moving the food. But they have had to look very clearly at the longer term policy implications of this. They want to work to see how the countries can work together to say 'never again, we don't want to see these countries in the same predicament 10 years down the road.' So clearly SADC has a role, they have been engaged throughout, they have been raising a number of these issues over the last 9, 10, 12 months so I think it's good, the timing's good. There's still a lot to be done and we've been liaising with them in terms of issues that would help us, looking at policies and facilitation so I'm optimistic, I think we're going to get some food cooperation and leadership from SADC. We would like to standardise the weigh bills, the waiving of humanitarian cargo - the tolls, the customs clearances, the third party transport arrangements, so there are a number of things that these governments collectively can do to assist. Q: What is WFP's policy on genetically modified (GM) food? A: The WFP's position on GM is that genetically modified organisms and all of the policies surrounding that are issues between the recipient government and the country that is providing the assistance. The country that is giving the food offers it and then the recipient government says yes we'll take it. The WFP accepts food that has already been cleared as fit for human consumption and we move that food so we don't have an issue in this, it's clearly between the two countries. Now, can it be a problem? Yes. The government of Zimbabwe has raised GMO issues but they have also worked with us to come up with how we can facilitate that. One would be to get the food milled when we bring it in. They are afraid that the grains, the whole kernels could somehow be eaten by livestock or in fact be planted and livestock could eat that and it gets into the genetic strain. So, one way would be to mill up the food and bring it in, another would be to bring it in and let the government mill it. If all of that fails then they would like us to transport the whole grain in sealed containers which is a little bit of a problem for us because it's so much more expensive to have sealed containers. And then they would ask that we do a very rigorous awareness campaign with the beneficiaries so that they would know you have to pound this food, you have to eat it yourself, don't plant it and don't feed it to livestock. We understand that Zambia is reviewing their GM policy but clearly they have already accepted many thousands of tons from the US already so we hope that that is not going to be an issue for them. Q: So you won't say take that or take nothing? A: No, we wouldn't want to do that. I have seen too many of those children who need this food and I have seen the situation and we have to do everything we can. Q: You were traveling with Mr Oshima last week. At your press conference earlier this year you painted a harrowing picture of the food shortage situation. Is it any better or any worse now? A: No. The situation in Malawi was certainly a deterioration from when I was there in April. We knew the crisis was wide but I don't think we realised how deep it was. There are a number of things that are going on in Malawi. Healthy adult men are dying and this is a new phenomena that we're trying to get to the bottom of and to see if we can find out what's going on. Pellagra and scabies are epidemic, the folks were telling us. There's still HIV-related deaths because when you have HIV your system doesn't respond and if you don't have nutritious food you're going to deteriorate more rapidly and we're seeing an acceleration of that. Malnutrition was still escalating and is among the highest in the world. We were talking about numbers going up in September, but what I'm seeing in Malawi is that the numbers are inching up now so we have to redouble our efforts to make sure that we reach those most acutely affected areas now or we're going to see more people dying and that's not acceptable.