OPEC development fund contributes to food crisis

The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) will donate US $9 million to support efforts to combat the growing food crisis in Southern Africa.

In a statement OFID said this would be drawn from a newly-launched US $20 million Food Aid Special Grant Account for humanitarian needs in Africa.

The money would go toward providing urgently-needed food and other supplies for the region where 15 million people require food aid due to a combination of erratic weather and economic and political problems.

Much of the assistance will be channeled through the World Food Program, (WFP) which is coordinating the global response to the crisis, the statement said.

"This is a large donation that will have a big impact," WFP spokesman Richard Lee told IRIN.

He added that there was still concern about the size of the next harvest due to low rainfall.

The fund is a multilateral development finance institution which seeks to promote cooperation between member states of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other developing countries.

Its 12 members are: Algeria, Gabon, Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.