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Zimbabwe urban food programme: REBA case study brief number 8
Wahenga
November 2007

http://www.wahenga.net/index.php/views/in_focus_full/regional_evidence_building_agenda_reba_thematic_briefs

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The Urban Food Programme in Zimbabwe is a food delivery and food voucher programme implemented by Action Aid International (AAI) that also includes other activities, namely low input gardens, and capacity building and training with local partners. The programme comes under the umbrella of DFID Zimbabwe's Protracted Relief Programme (PRP).

The purpose of PRP is to stabilise food security and protect the livelihoods of vulnerable households in Zimbabwe, particularly those affected by HIV/AIDS. PRP is implemented by 12 NGOs (of which AAI is one) and their local partners. A first phase of PRP ran from 2004 to 2007, with a recent extension to 2008. A new phase is in the pipeline for 2008 onwards. In its first phase, the PRP reached about 1.5 million beneficiaries per year within an overall budget of sterling £30 million (US$60 million). It is a mainly rural-based relief effort intended to support agricultural production through advice and inputs, as well as to provide clean water, and to support destitute people and those living with HIV/AIDS.

The AAI Urban Food Programme is the only urban-based scheme in the portfolio, and is directed especially at individuals and families dealing with AIDS. In the Urban Food Programme, AAI has pioneered the use of food vouchers as a means of ensuring stable food and grocery supplies to recipients in conditions of hyperinflation, steeply deteriorating exchange rates, and macroeconomic instability. The food voucher is worth sterling £9.00 (US$18) per month.

The voucher provides beneficiaries with a basket of commodities designed to fulfil nutritional as well as non-food basic needs. This composition was determined by experience, and after consultation with stakeholders. The corn-soya blend (CSB) nutritional supplement is delivered directly to beneficiaries by AAI partners, it is not collected by them at retailers with the other voucher items. At its peak the Urban Food Programme reached 3,145 beneficiaries; however, erosion of the real value of its external resources, due to exchange rate and inflation effects, has meant that in 2007 it was only able to reach 2,000 beneficiaries.

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