The Zimbabwe Zero Hunger Strategic Review, which was held in Harare last week, will assist the World Food Programme (WFP) and other development partners to align their strategies and ensure programming coherence as Zimbabwe fights to consolidate food security in the country, a senior WFP official has said.
BY PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI
WFP senior advisor for country strategies Chris Toe, who was in the country for the strategic review workshop, said the organisation wanted to enhance its contribution to food security.
“We firmly believe that unless WFP and other stakeholders can demonstrate how they are collaborating to support countries to achieve their national priorities to end hunger, they cannot make hunger a phenomenon of the past,” Toe said.
This comes amid indications by Agriculture minister Joseph Made that 300 000 hectares of cereal crops planted this year were now a complete write-off following a prolonged dry spell.
About two million hectares had been put under food cereals this year.
Made revealed there were still pockets of hope on the remaining 1,7 million hectares in Mashonaland Central province, Mashonaland West and parts of Mashonaland East.
Government is already working on plans to import maize, with Cabinet having directed the Minister of Finance to mobilise resources for the purpose.
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The national vulnerability assessment committee’s (ZimVAC) report released in September last year noted that although the 2014/15 food security situation has improved significantly, some people would not be able to meet their annual food requirements.
“Between October and December 2014, an estimated330 972 persons (in rural areas) are not able to meet their annual food requirements. This number is projected to increase during the peak lean period (January to March 2015) to 564 599 people,” the report reads in part.
This, however, is a sharp decline from the 2,2 million persons estimated to be in need of food assistance between January and March 2014.
Toe said in sub-Saharan Africa, over 200 million – one in every four people – were chronically hungry and 15 of the 19 countries with people experiencing “extremely alarming levels of hunger” were in this region.
“What this means is that the MDG target of reducing by half the proportion of undernourished people by the end of 2015 is within reach, but has not been achieved,” he said.
“It also means that the WFP’s mission to end global hunger will remain unattainable as long as food and nutrition insecurity persists.”
This was confirmed by the Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Christian Katsande who said despite the improved performance of the agricultural sector last year the country was not yet self-sufficient in terms of food production.
“Although there was a marked improvement in the performance of the agricultural sector, and with it the food and nutrition situation last year, the country is yet to regain its self–sufficiency in the major staple cereals,” he said during the official opening of the Zero Hunger Review Validation workshop.
Zero Hunger Challenge is the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s vision for a future where no person would be hungry and everyone enjoyed their right to food with priority given to family farming.
Despite this decrease, food and nutrition security remains fragile and subject to natural and economic shocks in Zimbabwe, with chronic and persistent rates of undernourishment.
Katsande said lack of financial resources was a leading cause of food and nutrition insecurity in the country and over 60% of the country’s households were considered poor, with those in the rural areas hardest hit at 76%.
He highlighted that the problems manifested more in children and although Zimbabwe had managed to maintain the level of wasting among children under the age of five at 5%, which was within the internationally acceptable level, there was still a struggle to lower the levels.
He said in 1999, underweight children made up 10% of the six to 59 months’ age group, but the number scaled up to 13% in 2005 before declining to 10% in 2010 and rising again in 2014 to 11%.
“The prevalence of stunted children aged less than five years has remained in the unacceptable range of above 30% between 1999 and 2010,” he said.
Last month, the Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet) said the country’s acute food situation will remain as production was being hampered by the late start of the rainy season, flooding, and dry spells.
The warning was released at the end of January after the northern half of the country experienced flash floods that swept away crops and houses particularly in the low-lying Muzarabani and Mbire districts of Mashonaland Central Province.
“Heavy rainfall in the north resulted in localised flooding, damaging crops, and food stocks for some households and, according to United Nations estimates, about 500 of the 1 200 households impacted by the flooding are in urgent need of assistance,” Fewsnet said.
The situation was no better in the arid southern zone referred to as Beitbridge South Western Lowveld Communal Livelihood (BSWLC) which covers Matabeleland South Province (Beitbridge, Gwanda, Mangwe and Matobo districts) and Masvingo Province (Chiredzi district).
The government safety-net programmes are also ongoing in 21 targeted districts, assisting the most vulnerable and labour, constrained households through the harmonised social cash transfer programme that provides monthly cash distribution of between $10 and $25.
Zimbabwe is ranked 156 out of 187 countries according to the 2013 UNDP Human Development Index.
Currently, 72% of the population lives below the national poverty line (less than $1,25 per day).
Some 30% of the rural poor are considered to be “food poor” or “extremely poor”.
Although the prevalence of HIV has been reduced, it still remains high with nearly 15 percent of adults living with HIV — many of whom also suffer from malnutrition due to food insecurity.
According to WFP’s Toe, although the world has made significant progress in reducing hunger over the last 15 years, but at least 805 million people, or one in nine, worldwide do not have enough to eat while 165 million children under five years of age are afflicted by stunting.
Stunting is rated as the worst form of under-nutrition.
Toe said he was happy that Zimbabwe was working around programmatic areas of the Food Security and Nutrition Cluster of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset) and had in place specific policies such as the food security and nutrition policy.
