Framework to forestall emergencies planned

Southeastern Madagascar is lush and green, its rolling hills dotted with rice paddies and fruit trees - the last place you would imagine as threatened by a food emergency. But in the remote coastal region of Vangaindrano, roughly 20 percent of the area's 24,000 children are malnourished, and the government and humanitarian partners are trying to bring aid to a community weakened by a series of disasters that have exhausted their ability to cope. An estimated 5,000 children and 4,500 pregnant or lactating women have been identified as malnourished. Since November 2005, when the government and humanitarian partners acknowledged the extent of the problem, 53 percent of the moderately or severely malnourished children have been treated. Over 80 percent of the more than 500 children estimated to be suffering from severe acute malnutrition - a condition typically compounded by additional medical problems - are receiving food and medical attention at one of the five Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre Bases (CRENA/CRENI) set up in the area in mid-December. Fenovavy, aged 20, and her 27-month-old son, was one of a line of desperate mothers waiting for a ration of enriched flour provided by a mobile CRENA/CRENI unit. She had heard by word of mouth about the free food and walked for an hour to get to the distribution point in the village of Ambalengo. "Last year our rice was destroyed by the floods and our cloves were no good, so we had no money to buy food," she explained. The food crisis was the end result of a string of disasters that hit the area. Early in 2005, a series of floods inundated fields, ruining the rice and manioc crops. Next, a drought prevented replanting, while an insect infestation decimated the remaining sweet potato crop. The exceptionally poor harvest of cloves - the area's major cash crop - and new government restrictions on the size of lobster and the season for the industry further depleted incomes. "All factors conspired against us at the same time," said Christian Razanabahiny Marojama, chief of the Atsimo Atsinanana Region, of which Vangaindrano District is a part. Although the degree and scale of the crisis in Vangaindrano is unusual, the problem of malnutrition in Madagascar is not. There are several root causes: a traditional rice-based diet lacking in micronutrients, low agricultural productivity, extreme poverty and a reliance on a narrow range of crops are cited as the primary culprits. "The problem is a lack of information. There's a lot of food here, but the nutritional composition is the problem," said Dr Naina Randriamahefa, supervisor of the CRENA/CRENI base at Bekaraoky and regional coordinator of a national NGO, ASOS. It is not unusual for young children to be fed solely on rice, which, although filling, lacks key nutrients. The ministry of agriculture and the NGO, CARE, have donated maize and bean seeds to diversify crop production in Vangaindrano. This has been supplemented by a food donation to ensure that people plant the seeds instead of eating them. Access to the remote region is a major barrier to relief efforts. Although the National Emergency Services has mobilised the army to help transport food aid and fix the bridges in Vangaindrano, the logistical operation has been stretched.

Difficult access and frequent breakdowns slow relief aid

The European Union Commission for Humanitarian Affairs announced on Friday it was providing 500,000 Euros to support the relief operation, much of which was pre-funded by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). The ministry of finance has pledged to prioritise rehabilitation of the road between Vangaindrano and Manantenina, an area also suffering from severe malnutrition. The government and humanitarian partners are looking at new methods to identify food security problems before they evolve into emergencies. Several existing programmes monitor food security and are developing early warning indicators, but these have a limited geographical range, and do not directly monitor nutrition. "The question is how to harmonise the existing systems into this future framework," said Gianluca Ferrera, Madagascar director of the World Food Programme. A larger framework is on the table. Operating under the Ministry of Health, the recently created National Office of Nutrition (ONN) launched a national policy in December 2005, and is currently developing a programme for community-based nutrition using existing health centres to collect and disseminate nutrition information. Many agree that the functionality of a national nutrition system, whatever form it takes, will only be as strong as the link between local knowledge and national response mechanisms. "We must work together with the 22 regional chiefs to collect the data so that we can prevent this type of crisis from recurring," ONN's national coordinator, Ambinintsoa Raveloharison, told IRIN.