As climate shocks intensify, UN food agencies urge more support for southern Africa's hungry people
A
record 45 million people across the 16-nation Southern African Development
Community (SADC) will be severely food insecure in the next six months, United
Nations food agencies have warned.
The
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) are calling
for urgent funding to avert a major hunger crisis and for the international
community to step up investment in long-term measures to combat the impact of
climate shocks and build the capacity of communities and countries to withstand
them.
There
are more than 11 million people now experiencing “crisis” or “emergency” levels
of food insecurity (IPC
Phases 3 and 4) in nine Southern African countries: Angola, Zimbabwe,
Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar, Malawi, Namibia, Eswatini and Lesotho.
“We’ve
had the worst drought in 35 years in central and western areas during the
growing season,” said Margaret Malu, WFP’s acting Regional Director for
Southern Africa. “We must meet the pressing emergency food and nutrition needs
of millions of people, but also invest in building the resilience of those
threatened by ever more frequent and severe droughts, floods and storms.”
While
southern Africa has experienced normal rainfall in just one of the last five
growing seasons, persistent drought, back-to-back cyclones and flooding have
wreaked havoc on harvests in a region overly dependent on rain-fed, smallholder
agriculture.
The
growing hunger crisis, affecting urban as well as rural communities, is being
aggravated by rising food prices, large-scale livestock losses and mounting
joblessness. It is also worsening levels of acute malnutrition in particularly
at-risk communities.
The
UN food agencies are escalating their responses across the nine countries,
planning to assist more than 11 million people by mid-2020. In addition to
addressing urgent food and nutrition needs, they will help smallholder farmers
boost production and reduce losses, manage precious soil and water resources in
a sustainable way and embrace climate-smart agricultural practices, better
access to inputs, credit and markets, and spearhead vaccination campaigns to
contain livestock disease.
“Late
rains, extended dry periods, two major cyclones and economic challenges have
proved a recipe for disaster for food security and livelihoods across Southern
Africa,” said Alain Onibon, FAO’s Sub-Regional Coordinator for Southern Africa.
“As it could take many farming communities at least two to three growing
seasons to return to normal production, immediate support is vital. Now
is the time to scale up agricultural emergency response. We need to ensure
farmers and agropastoralists take advantage of the forecasted good rains,
assuming they happen, as this will be crucial in helping them rebuild their
livelihoods.”
Southern
Africa’s temperatures are rising at twice the global average according to the
International Panel on Climate Change, and the region includes six of the nine
African countries set to be hardest hit by adverse weather in coming years: DR
Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“With
the region so prone to shocks and afflicted by high rates of chronic hunger,
inequality and structural poverty, climate change is an existential emergency
which must be tackled with the utmost urgency”, said Robson Mutandi, IFAD
Director for the Southern Africa Hub. “Governments have the biggest role to
play, but we must all step up because it affects each and every one of us.”
Bridging
humanitarian action and longer-term development is crucial to overcoming
recurrent crises and tackling the root causes of poverty and food
insecurity. With sustainable sources of funding, communities and countries
can build their resilience to future shocks.
Link
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire