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Apply Niger aid lessons to southern Africa: Oxfam
Peter Apps, Reuters
September 08, 2005

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Rich countries must act now to head off a looming food crisis threatening 10 million people in Southern Africa, aid agency Oxfam said on Thursday.

Oxfam and other agencies say the world risks repeating the mistakes made in the West African country of Niger where aid groups are scrambling to address a food crisis for some 2.5 million people that had been forecasted months in advance.

"Rich countries are failing to learn the lessons of the Niger food crisis as up to 10 million people in southern Africa face food shortages," Oxfam said in a statement. "Money is desperately needed now so that charities, governments and the U.N. can prevent the crisis from worsening."

Despite reports of drought, crop failure and dwindling food stocks, significant donor funding only arrived in Niger after television crews began filming and children and vulnerable adults began dying.

Aid workers say the cost of responding in Niger was increased because donations arrived so late food had to be flown in instead of trucked overland and many children were so starved they needed expensive therapeutic feeding to recover.

Now, the United Nations warns more than 10 million people in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique will face serious shortages after harvests failed, hitting communities already battling the world's highest HIV rates.

AIDS has killed many subsistence farmers and deepening poverty makes buying food almost impossible for families who sold much of what they owned during a similar crisis in 2002.

Widespread starvation is seen as unlikely, with most families able to get by through harvesting raw fruits, selling property and pulling children from school to save cash -- "coping strategies" that will push them deeper into poverty.

"We're not talking about the same sort of crisis as Niger," Oxfam co-ordinator Neil Townsend said. "But the numbers are very alarming. It's not acceptable for us to ignore the suffering of that amount of people and if we did we would be complicit in it."

Both the U.N. World Food Programme and other agencies say they are finding it hard to get the funding to expand distribution, forcing many needy families to do without aid. In parts of the region, handouts have been cut back.

The crisis will likely be at its worst between December and March as limited remaining stocks are exhausted before the 2006 harvest is ready to eat. In parts of the region, village granaries are already empty and some Malawians must brave crocodile-infested waters to retrieve water lilies for food.

Oxfam said it had started distributing food aid in Malawi and would provide support in planting next year's crop in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique as well as food or vouchers for hungry families.

It also wants U.N. member states to commit an additional $1 billion to a permanent emergency fund on top of their current aid contributions, allowing the United Nations to call on money immediately even if donors were slow to respond.

"Rich countries spend $1 billion every day on supporting their farmers," Townsend said. "If they pledged the same amount every year to a permanent emergency fund ... preventable crises like Niger and southern Africa would not happen because money would be available as soon as a country needed it."

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