Mozambique: funding shortfall threatens hundreds of thousands with hunger – UN
Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in Mozambique will go hungry unless the international community helps fill a dramatic funding shortfall, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.
Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in Mozambique will go hungry unless the international community helps fill a dramatic funding shortfall, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.
“We urgently need $19 million to keep essential feeding programmes going for 430,000 people in Mozambique, but we need the assistance now,” WFP Regional Director for Southern Africa Mike Sackett said, noting that the agency is now reaching only just over a third of those in need, and the number will rise sharply from November.
“Southern Mozambique is particularly hard hit by the food shortages, and of course, HIV/AIDS is also exacting a terrible toll on the most vulnerable households,” he added.
Across the region, WFP still needs $191 million to feed up to 8.5 million people in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Zambia through the next lean season, which traditionally runs from December to April.
The situation in the region is considered so serious that Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote to 27 heads of State, the European Commission and the African Development Bank last month to raise the alarm for urgent funding to “avert a catastrophe.”
Yesterday Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland noted that the UN’s $88 million appeal for Malawi issued last week has received zero pledges so far.
Nearly every country in the region is experiencing significant price hikes in staple foods, meaning that the poorest people will be increasingly unable to afford to eat as the lean season nears. Price increases are common during a country’s lean season when food stocks are scarcest, but rarely do they start this early in the year.
“It is alarming that we’re seeing so many negative signs across Southern Africa so early in the season,” Mr. Sackett said. “All countries are affected, but in Mozambique the situation is being compounded by a bleak outlook for the next agricultural season as water levels have significantly dropped.”