The United Nations World Food Programme said on Thursday
that a record 45 million people in the 16-nation Southern African Development
Community faced growing hunger following repeated drought, widespread flooding
and economic disarray.
Southern Africa is in the grips of a severe drought, as
climate change wreaks havoc in impoverished countries already struggling to
cope with extreme natural disasters, such as Cyclone Idai which devastated
Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in 2019.
Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of southern Africa, is
experiencing its worst economic crisis in a decade, marked by soaring inflation
and shortages of food, fuel, medicines and electricity.
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| Southern Africa face hunger |
“This hunger crisis is on a scale we’ve not seen before and
the evidence shows it’s going to get worse,” the WFP’s Regional Director for
Southern Africa, Lola Castro, said in a statement.
“The annual cyclone season has begun and we simply cannot
afford a repeat of the devastation caused by last year’s unprecedented storms.”
The agency plans to provide “lean season” assistance to 8.3
million people grappling with “crisis” or “emergency” levels of hunger in eight
of the hardest-hit countries, which include Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique,
Madagascar, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini and Malawi.
To date, WFP has secured just $205 million of the $489
million required for this assistance and has been forced to resort heavily to
internal borrowing to ensure food reaches those in need, it said.
In December, the United Nations said it was procuring food
assistance for 4.1 million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the population of a
country where shortages are being exacerbated by runaway inflation and
climate-induced drought.
“Zimbabwe is in the throes of its worst hunger emergency in
a decade, with 7.7 million people – half the population – seriously food
insecure,” the agency said.
In Zambia and drought-stricken Lesotho, 20% of the
population faces a food crisis, as do 10% of Namibians.
Castro said that if the agency does not receive the
necessary funding, it will have no choice but to assist fewer of those most in
need and with less.
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