A young girl washes her hands in a puddle near a UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC. Photo Credit: UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti

By Juliana White
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 21 2025 (IPS)

Electric vehicles contribute to an ongoing environmental and humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Mining operations cause deforestation, pollution, food insecurity and exploitative labor practices.

Advertisers paint electric vehicles as an environmentally friendly option to help save the planet. In the West, American states like California and New York incentivize citizens to go green and help their cities by ditching gas-powered vehicles.

California officials are trying to enact legislation to reach 100 percent zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035. Across the country in New York, officials implemented the Drive Clean Rebate. Through this program, New Yorkers can receive up to 2,000 USD off the purchase or lease of an electric vehicle.

Governments are pushing for more electric vehicle sales because they are helping reduce the damage inflicted by fossil fuels. In the United States, emissions have reduced by around 66 percent. In China, a country dominating the electric vehicle production and sales market, emissions have been reduced by an estimated range of 37 percent to 45 percent.

However, consumers must understand that electric vehicles primarily benefit the environment in wealthier regions. Rising demands for electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries foster destruction and exploitation in poorer countries like the DRC.

One of the key minerals used to make lithium-ion batteries is cobalt. The DRC is the world’s top producer of mined cobalt, at a staggering 75 percent. To fulfill high demands for the mineral, the DRC has become a hot spot overrun by industrial and artisanal small-scale mining operations.

“The surge in demand for lithium-ion batteries has dramatically increased global demand for cobalt, and DRC cobalt production is projected to double by 2030,” said the International Labor Organization (ILO) to IPS. “Because industrial mines can’t keep pace, this has encouraged expansion of artisanal and unregulated mining.”

Artisanal small-scale mines are poorly regulated, informal operations for extracting minerals. Located all over the DRC, these mines exploit child labor, use basic handheld tools, and disregard safety protocols.

“ASM can also lead to conflict as clashes take place between traditional licensed large-scale mining operations and ASM over access to minerals,” Dr. Lamfu Yengong, the Forest campaigner for Greenpeace Africa, told IPS. “While statistics on the actual number of ASM miners in SSA are hard to find, it is estimated that in the DRC alone, there are between 200,000 and 250,000 ASM miners who are responsible for mining as much as 25 percent of the DRC’s cobalt.”

The growth of mining is also decimating the DRC’s environment. Mining sites need large areas of land to operate. As laborers dig, open pits form, releasing dust and other toxic chemicals into the air and polluting surrounding waterways.

Cobalt mines often contain sulfur minerals, which can create acid mine drainage. This process occurs when sulfur minerals are exposed to both air and water.

Sulfuric acid is incredibly harmful because it can make water unsafe for human consumption, kill aquatic life and produce algal blooms. Contact with the acid causes skin irritation and burns, and respiratory issues, and long-term exposure increases the risk of cancer.

Deforestation, erosion, contaminated soil and water sources, increased noise levels and dust and smoke emissions from mining pursuits disrupt the lives of Congolese locals and wildlife. Many are killed or forced to relocate as land, once prosperous for life, now nourishes profit-fueled exploits.

“Mining in the DRC is tearing through the heart of the Congo Basin, one of the world’s most important carbon sinks, leaving behind poisoned rivers, deforested landscapes, and devastated ecosystems,” Yengong said. “What once were lush forests are now scarred by unregulated extraction, threatening biodiversity, accelerating climate change, and robbing future generations of their environmental heritage.”

Despite having over 197 million acres of arable land, the DRC is one of the top-ranking areas of food insecurity globally. Over 25 million Congolese people suffer from a lack of access to food.

Mining endeavors only fuel the hunger crisis because contaminants in the soil and water make growing crops difficult. Forest resources also disappear as more land is cleared for new mines.

Alongside food insecurity impacted by pollution, agriculture efforts suffer from climate change. Weather patterns have drastically changed across the globe, making rain patterns unpredictable. A heavy reliance on rainfed agriculture and prolonged droughts in the DRC immensely impact food supplies.

One of the many camps in the DRC for people displaced by conflict and environmental devastation. Credit: UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti

The pursuit of minerals for lithium-ion batteries encourages mass destruction and egregious human rights violations in the DRC. But mining operations cannot simply stop to solve the problem. Many Congolese people rely on working in the mines to support their families.

Groups such as the ILO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Food Programme (WFP) are actively working on sustainable solutions to stop further exploitation and harm to the DRC.

“To improve the health of workers in or near mine sites, the ILO is supporting the roll-out of the universal health insurance scheme (Couverture Santé Universelle—CSU), which aims to provide coverage for all individuals in DRC, including those working in the mining sector and their families,” the ILO said. “The benefit package will include a range of services such as general and specialist consultations, hospitalization, essential medicines and vaccines, medical procedures and exams, maternity and newborn care, palliative care, and patient transfers between facilities.”

The UNEP is forming plans focusing on minimizing the environmental impacts of mining. Working with the DRC’s government

“UNEP is working with the DRC’s government to develop a national plan for the extraction of minerals like cobalt. The plan would focus on minimizing the environmental impact of mining,” said Corey Pattison in a UNEP press release. “We are also exploring whether local and international institutions can help resolve conflict around mineral extraction, including through processes like revenue sharing and dispute resolution.”

The WFP is trying to ease the problem by investing in resilience programs. Activities are created to build skills in communities to improve long-term food security. Skill building includes educating farmers in post-harvest loss management, literacy, business and collective marketing.

They also work closely with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to limit negative environmental impacts. Reforestation initiatives are actively underway across the DRC. The WFP reported that 3,850 women in North and South Ubangi planted tree seedlings in 2022.

The crisis in the DRC should not mark the end of lithium batteries and electric vehicles. Scientists are working on new solutions for cleaner, more efficient power sources. Some new batteries in the works include sodium-ion batteries, silicon-carbon batteries, and lithium-sulfur batteries. Introducing more power sources could limit the overwhelming strain on resources in the DRC as the need for cobalt would reduce.

A report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) suggests that sustainable mining techniques and technologies are another tactic to reduce environmental impacts. However, significant change relies on the DRC’s government and its officials. They must enforce stricter mandates to mitigate the harm ravaging Congolese people’s lives.

The ILO says that Corporate Social Responsibility has been made mandatory through the 2018 mining code. Mining companies are required to invest .3 percent of their annual turnover into community development projects.

In turn, the mandate allows for easy tracking of mining companies’ income through transparency mechanisms like the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

While the DRC has enacted environmental regulations and is involved in additional support programs, its history of weak institutions and conflict challenges aid efforts. Rampant instability greatly limits the implementation and enforcement of policies.

“The world’s clean energy transition must not come at the cost of Congolese lives and forests. The critical minerals beneath the DRC fuel the global economy, yet the people above them remain among the poorest and most exploited,” said Yengong. “Real climate solutions must prioritize the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, end greenwashing, and ensure justice, not just extraction.”

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The Government of Romania, a Balkan state to the south of Ukraine, and its humanitarian partners have offered extensive support to Ukrainians fleeing the escalation of the conflict with Russia since 2022. Beneficiaries receive food and humanitarian provisions from the Romania Red Cross. Credit: Filip Scarlat/Romanian Red Cross

By Catherine Wilson
BUCHAREST, Romania , Dec 23 2024 (IPS)

The days are short with bitterly cold rain in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, the largest Balkan country located south of the Ukraine. Over the border, temperatures in Kyiv will plummet to a daily average of zero in December as the Ukraine war grinds on.

Wars are bringing suffering and heightened insecurity to millions around the world, and food is not only a casualty of bombing and devastation but also being used as a weapon against civilians by warring parties.

Conflict is now the greatest driver of major food crises in the world, says the World Food Programme, and the situation is acute in the Ukraine, which continues to defend itself against Russian invasion, and Gaza, still under siege by Israel. And the threat of severe hunger for civilians caught in hostilities will only rise as winter sets in during the coming months.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, an escalation of tensions since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, triggered massive human displacement, with many fleeing into neighbouring countries. By 2023, Romania, with a population of 19 million, had witnessed more than 3 million Ukrainians arrive at its border, the vast majority being women and children.

“The bombs fell down near my house. I woke up; my 13-year-old daughter woke up. I got up my son and said, ‘You have five minutes; grab your things, and we are going to the metro station.’ We found a car to pick us up with the children and to the house of my sister, her newborn baby, and two more children of her husband. It was crazy. Everywhere there were queues. You couldn’t get money from the ATM, you couldn’t get fuel—nothing.” Iryna Sobol, a 45-year-old Ukrainian who fled her Kyiv home in 2022 and now resides in Bucharest, recounted to IPS. And, as the conflict spread, food prices rose.

As with other basic needs, food systems face collapse when military attacks destroy agricultural land and crops, forcing farmers to flee and damaging the critical infrastructure for transporting, storing, and selling food. Since 2022, the agricultural industry in the Ukraine has been hit with losses of USD 80 billion. And as people under siege face increasingly scarce food supplies, prices rise for what is available, making basic sustenance an even greater struggle for those who have lost their income.

Since mid-year, Russian forces have made aggressive advances into the east and Donetsk region of Ukraine, where more than 137,000 people have been forced to flee since August.

Ukraine refugees receive food provisions from the Romania Red Cross in Bucharest. Credit: Filip Scarlat/Romanian Red Cross

“The humanitarian situation is further exacerbated now that winter has set in. Russia’s targeted destruction of critical energy infrastructure has led to massive losses in Ukraine’s energy generation capacity, and the attacks continue, disrupting electricity, heating, and water supply and already affecting millions of households,” Elisabeth Haslund, spokesperson for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in the Ukraine, told IPS. Food is also a critical need, with 7.3 million Ukrainians, or 20 percent of the population, facing food insecurity this year, reports the United Nations.

In Bucharest, Andrei Scarlat, Manager of the Romanian Red Cross Humanity Concept Store, said he had witnessed a recent increase of newly arrived Ukrainian refugees registering for humanitarian supplies, such as flour, sugar, rice, canned foods, and hygiene products.

The Romanian Red Cross, which has assisted more than 1.3 million displaced Ukrainians with food, water, shelter, and health, is one of many humanitarian organizations that are partnered with the Romanian government in its acclaimed state response to the Ukraine refugee crisis. Within days of its neighbour coming under attack, the Balkan state coordinated an emergency operation at border crossings with the provision of shelter, food, and medical care to those fleeing. And it offers temporary protection to refugees with access to services such as health, education, housing, and employment.

An Action Against Hunger aid worker measures a baby girl’s arm using a MUAC band to assess nutritional health in Gaza, August 2024. Credit: Action Against Hunger

But, more than 2,000 kilometres to the southeast, conflict in the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza has already brought it to the brink of famine. In the tiny 365-square-kilometer territory, sandwiched between the Mediterranean Sea to the east and Israel to the west, 2.23 million Palestinians have endured years of suffering under an Israeli blockade. Now the military onslaught by the Israeli Defence Force in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack inside Israeli territory on 7 October last year, which left 1,200 Israelis dead, has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians.

And the destruction of basic infrastructure for habitation, including water, sanitation, health and medical facilities, and food systems, with the elimination of 70 percent of Gaza’s crops, has created unbearable living conditions for the more than 90 percent of Gazans who are displaced. In October, the World Food Programme warned that famine was imminent.

“The Gaza Strip is currently in a human-made famine. We are long past the point of ‘imminent famine.’ The first child was killed by Israeli-imposed famine many months ago and many more since,” Yasmeen El-Hasan of the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Ramallah, Palestine, told IPS. “The use of food and essential resources as weapons of war is a hallmark of Israeli systematic violence against Palestinians… aimed at starving Palestinians into elimination.”

In Northern Gaza, the focus of Israeli air and ground assaults over the past two months, more than 65,000 people are barely surviving in overcrowded tent shelters with no water and sanitation. The dire lack of food is causing severe malnutrition, especially in mothers and children.

And since October, Israeli border authorities have blocked and delayed food and humanitarian deliveries into the territory through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Consequently, in October only 5,000 metric tons of food succeeded in reaching Gaza, or one fifth of what was required, claims the World Food Programme.

“There has been no significant easing of restrictions on the entry of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza… and we were only able to deliver aid to half as many distribution points in North Gaza over the past month,” the spokesperson for Action Against Hunger, a humanitarian organization addressing hunger and malnutrition around the world, told IPS.

El-Hasan added that “the minimal food that is available is not accessible. The food consumer price index has increased 312 percent; aid that does enter is concentrated in small areas, and the Israeli occupation forces often attack Palestinians as they seek aid.”

A child in northern Gaza drinks water provided by Action Against Hunger to support displaced communities, October 2024. Credit: Action Against Hunger

A scene of destruction in northern Gaza shows demolished buildings and scattered debris, with a lone tree standing amidst the ruins, October 2024. Credit: Action Against Hunger

As the winter months unfold, the people of Gaza will face catastrophic conditions, with 90 percent of Gazans likely to experience severe hunger. “Cold and rainy weather is already affecting those in makeshift shelters, which are often constructed from tarpaulins, blankets, and cardboard, offering little protection. Children and the elderly are particularly at risk,” said Action Against Hunger.

On 12 December, the UN General Assembly voted for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. But the survival of Gazans during the coming months will depend on the untrammelled passage of humanitarian aid. “There must be an immediate reopening of all border crossings, a substantial increase in the influx of aid into Gaza, and a guarantee of safe, unobstructed access for humanitarian organizations to deliver aid to all areas,” the spokesperson for Action Against Hunger continued. El-Hasan added that “the international community must also abide by their legal obligations and hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war.”

In the Ukraine, the UNHCR and its humanitarian partners are responding to those who continue to flee fighting and need support as weather conditions deteriorate. But, as in Gaza, only an end to the conflict will provide the conditions for reconstructing Ukraine’s agricultural industry and food production, a goal that will take years and an investment of at least USD 56 billion.

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Yasmine Sherif, Education Cannot Wait Executive Director, interacts with students at Lycée National de Petion Ville, where, thanks to ECW investments, students are benefiting from catch-up classes and accelerated education programmes. Credit: ECW

By Joyce Chimbi
PORT-AU-PRINCE & NAIROBI, Jul 26 2024 (IPS)

Haiti is witnessing unprecedented levels of lawlessness and brutality from armed gangs, which target schools and hospitals. The groups have plunged the country into a crisis and apart from the gun violence accusations, disturbing reports of ruthless sexual violence, including gang rape. Millions of children are in harm’s way; many are out of school and it is estimated that between 30 and 50 percent of armed group members are children.

“The country is facing great challenges. You have extreme gang violence, with gangs controlling big parts of the territory and committing sexual and gender-based violence. On the other hand, there are climate change disasters and their severe effects, such as hurricanes and floods, extreme poverty, and there’s been quite a bit of instability over the years,” Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises within the United Nations, told IPS. 

With most of the country’s schools being private, only slightly over half of Haitians have access to preschool and much fewer manage to go on to secondary education. Over half of the country’s schools lack water or toilets, and three-quarters have no electricity. Nearly 1.2 million Haitian children need urgent life-saving education support.

René Kaëlle, 18, welcomes the Education Cannot Wait mission delegation at the Lycée National de Petion Ville, where students have access to catch-up classes and accelerated education programmes delivered by UNICEF thanks to ECW investments.
Credit: ECW

Sherif lauds ECW’s strategic partners, such as UNICEF and the World Food Programme, who, together with local organizations under the leadership of Haiti’s Minister of Education and new government, are overcoming multiple challenges and undertaking life-transforming humanitarian work targeting internally displaced children and scores of other affected children, such as the poor and vulnerable.

Against this backdrop, ECW, UNICEF and strategic partners have today announced USD 2.5 million, which is ECW First Emergency Response Grant, during a high-level UN mission to Haiti. ECW has been supporting learning opportunities across the country. The new fast-acting emergency response grant will provide life-saving access to quality education for girls and boys impacted by the rise in violence, insecurity and forced displacement.

During a high-level UN mission to Haiti, ECW announced the new grant, bringing the total ECW funding in Haiti to USD 15.8 million. The 12-month grant will be delivered by UNICEF in collaboration with WFP and other local and international partners. The innovative programme will reach close to 75,000 children and adolescents in the hard-hit Ouest (French) and Artibonite or Latibonit (Haitian Creole) Departments.

“The education crisis unfolding in Haiti is dangerously close to becoming an education tragedy. While enrollment rates were already low before the latest escalation of violence, school closures and mass displacement are robbing thousands more children of their opportunity to learn. Hence, UNICEF is grateful to Education Cannot Wait for the continued support and commitment to ensure every child in Haiti has access to quality and safe learning,” said Bruno Maes, UNICEF Representative in Haiti.

Yasmine Sherif, Education Cannot Wait Executive Director, speaks with a displaced child at the Lycée Jean Marie Vincent. The ECW-supported school currently also serves as a displacement site and benefits from hot meals and non-formal education.
Credit: ECW

The compounding effects of climate change, recurring cyclones, and the most recent earthquake are making matters even worse. In all, nearly half of Haiti’s population—some 5.5 million people—is in need of humanitarian aid, and 5 million people are facing acute food insecurity. Since the end of February, the number of displaced individuals nationwide has increased by 60 percent to nearly 580,000.

ECW’s investment includes innovative cash transfers, back-to-school incentives, school feeding programmes, early childhood education, disability inclusion, transformative gender approaches, mental health and psychosocial support, environmental sensitization activities, and other holistic education offerings designed to ensure girls and boys have access to safe and protective quality learning environments.

Nevertheless, the need is even greater and, to leave no child behind, Sherif says “more resources are needed and with speed and, urgency to close the existing funding deficit against the emergency response plan. We are very grateful to the United States, USAID, Canada and other donors that are contributing, but we call upon all donors to help meet the funding gap, and give millions of Haitian children and young people now in harm’s way, lifelong learning and earning opportunities.”

Sherif paints a picture of a country going through a very difficult phase while at the same time having strong goodwill and competence in the government. Skilled teachers and motivated students, even though internally displaced and suffering.”

As an education tragedy unfolds, OCHA estimates show the USD 30 million requirement for the education response as part of the country’s humanitarian response plan is only 27 percent funded. Bringing into perspective the magnitude of the escalating education crises, and the need for speedy, urgent responses.

Sherif told IPS that education will help address many of the challenges facing Haiti today, both in terms of addressing the urgent needs of the internally displaced and affected children and in reining in gang violence, as it will help the young generation make productive contributions to society.

“I am a firm believer that education also embeds many other SDGs. The work that we are doing in Haiti with all our partners will have far-reaching positive outcomes, as it includes school feeding, gender equality, mental health and psychosocial services, academic learning and skills training to provide livelihoods and end extreme poverty,” Sherif says.

“Without the resources required, even more teachers working under very difficult circumstances will leave and, the country could experience a significant brain drain. Let us not lose the window of opportunity that exists today to deliver the promise of a safe, inclusive, quality education for millions of children in Haiti. This includes bringing back to school children absorbed in armed groups.”

ECW is particularly concerned that schools are being closed or used as displacement centers across the country, removing the protective cover that uninterrupted, safe and inclusive, quality education systems offer to children in difficult circumstances. Already, approximately 900 schools are closed in the Ouest and in Artibonite Departments alone, meaning that 10 percent of all schools are closed.

“World leaders must not turn their backs on the girls and boys of Haiti. These children, teachers and families have seen their human rights and human dignity ripped from their hands by brutal acts of violence, disorder and chaos,” Sherif says. “With the power of education, we can protect these girls and boys from the grave risks of sexual violence, forced recruitment in armed groups and other human rights violations. With the power of education, we can lift up an entire nation from a never-ending cycle of hunger, poverty, economic uncertainty and violence.”

ECW works through the multilateral system to both increase the speed of responses in crises, for immediate relief and long-term interventions. ECW and its global strategic partners are calling on world leaders to urgently mobilize an additional USD600 million toward the Fund’s three-year strategic plan, to expand its investments in Haiti and across crisis-impacted countries worldwide, and to reach 20 million girls and boys with the safety, power and opportunity that only a quality education can provide.

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Temporary medical camps are still the norm in some areas of Pakistan as the country struggles to recover from last year’s flooding. Now areas of the country are facing Cyclone Biparjoy and a monsoon season, and warnings are that food insecurity may increase. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Jun 13 2023 (IPS)

A warning by the UN that Pakistan may face acute food insecurity in the coming months should serve as a wake-up call for the government to focus on the flood-hit areas where the people still live without shelter, medication, and proper food, analysts say.

The warning comes as the National Forecasting Centre in Islamabad warned of an extremely severe cyclonic storm Biparjoy that is expected to make landfall in the country in the coming days.

A mass evacuation of about 80,000 people from its path in Sindh province and India’s Gujarat state is underway in areas where severe storms and high winds are expected.

Ahead of the storm and the expected monsoon season, a recent United Nations report warned that acute food insecurity in Pakistan is likely to be further exacerbated in coming months if the economic and political crisis further worsens, compounding the effects of the 2022 floods – which the country is yet to recover from.

The report titled “Hunger Hotspots” was jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), is a stark reminder to the government, which is yet to cater to the needs of the population hit by severe floods in June-July last year. The two UN agencies have further warned that acute food insecurity will likely deteriorate further in 81 hunger spots — comprising 22 countries, including Pakistan, during the outlook period from June to November 2023.

The projected path of Cyclone Biparjoy.  About 80,000 people are expected to be evacuated ahead of the storm. Credit: India Meteorological Department

According to the report, Pakistan, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Kenya, Congo, and Syria are hotspots with great concern, and the warning is also extended to Myanmar.

Pakistan’s Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research, Tariq Bashir Cheema, disputed the report regarding possible “acute food insecurity” in Pakistan and termed it “an effort to spread sensationalism and declare the country a hunger hotspot like African countries.”

He alleged that the two UN agencies wanted to declare Pakistan a “hotspot” for famine like African countries.

“Pakistan had a bumper wheat crop this year, and 28.5 million tonnes of wheat production had been recorded, along with the carry-over stock of the previous year,” he told IPS.

However, analysts and NGOs working in the field said the report was accurate and urged the government to take strong measures for food security before the new wave of flooding.

Almost one year after unprecedented floods ravaged Pakistan, more than 10 million people living in flood-affected areas remain deprived of safe drinking water, leaving families with no alternative to use potentially disease-ridden water, Muhammad Zaheer, an economist, told IPS.

In January, donors pledged more than USD10.7 billion for Pakistan’s flood-stricken population in Geneva against an estimated USD16.3 billion recovery bill.

“All the amount pledged at the conference are loans which will be sent to the government from time to time. However, the flood-stricken people are yet to benefit,” he said.

Zaheer said that affected people in Sindh, Balochistan, and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa need support due to the fear of more rains.

According to the report, over 8.5 million people were likely to experience high levels of acute food insecurity.

The situation has been compounded by last year’s floods which caused damage and economic losses of Rs30bn to the agriculture sector.

According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), a  Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) estimated flood damages to exceed USD 14.9 billion, economic losses over USD 15.2 billion, and reconstruction need over $16.3 billion.

The food insecurity and malnutrition situation will likely worsen in the outlook period, as economic and political crises are reducing households’ purchasing power and ability to buy food and other essential goods, it notes.

A UNICEF report said that an estimated 20.6 million people, including 9.6 million children, need humanitarian assistance in hard-hit districts with high malnutrition, poor access to water and sanitation, and low school enrollment.

“Frail, hungry children are fighting a losing battle against severe acute malnutrition, diarrhea, malaria, dengue fever, typhoid, acute respiratory infections, and painful skin conditions. As well as physical ailments, the longer the crisis continues, the greater the risk to children’s mental health,” it said.

UNICEF will continue to respond to urgent humanitarian needs while also restoring and rehabilitating existing health, water, sanitation, and education facilities for families returning home. An estimated 3.5 million children, especially girls, are at high risk of permanently dropping out of school.

“But much more support is needed to ensure we can reach all families displaced by floods and help them overcome this climate disaster. It will take months, if not years, for families to recover from the sheer scale of the devastation,” it said.

The floods affected 33 million people, while more than 1,700 lives were lost, and more than 2.2 million houses were damaged or destroyed. The floods damaged most of the water systems in affected areas, forcing more than 5.4 million people, including 2.5 million children, to rely solely on contaminated water from ponds and wells.

Sultana Bibi, who lost her home and a few cattle in the flood in Swat district, said there was no government assistance so far.

“We have received some foodstuff from the local NGO in the early days, but we need financial assistance to rebuild our homes. Many people still live with their relatives,” Bibi, 50, told IPS.

Representatives of Al-Khidmat Foundation, a national NGO, which is on the ground in Swat and other areas to help the people, said the situation is yet to improve.

“Unsafe water and poor sanitation are key underlying causes of malnutrition. The associated diseases, such as diarrhea, prevent children from getting the vital nutrients they need. Malnourished children are also more susceptible to waterborne diseases due to already weakened immune systems, which perpetuates a vicious cycle of malnutrition and infection,” he said.

“We fear more flood as June has begun. Last year, we faced severe floods during this month. The government is required to help the people,” analyst Abdul Hakim said.

Hakim, a university lecturer in environmental sciences in Swat district, told IPS that the people would be worst-hit in case of floods this year, and the people haven’t recovered from the last year’s devastating rainwaters.

Pakistan Medical Association’s Dr Abdul Ghafoor said that people still rely on medical camps organized by NGOs as health facilities destroyed by floods haven’t been operational.

“We want the government to take the FAO/WFP report seriously and safeguard the affected people against water and food-borne ailments,” he told IPS.

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Dr Svetlana Alexandrova, Medical Director of the Chernihiv Psychoneurological Hospital, and Yevgen Skydan, Technical Specialist, walk Todd Bernhardt and his team through the basement where patients and staff were sheltered during the Russian invasion. Credit: Jonathan Moore/International Medical Corps

By SeiMi Chu
Stanford, Aug 9 2022 (IPS)

During Todd Bernhardt’s visit to Ukraine’s conflict zones, he encountered untold damage to hospitals, healthcare clinics, and communities. The Senior Director of Global Communications at the International Medical Corps also encountered enormous courage.

On one of his visits, Bernhardt met Dr Svetlana Alexandrova, Medical Director of the Psychoneurological Hospital in Chernihiv, a city about two hours northeast of Kyiv that saw fierce fighting during the early weeks of the invasion.

He said Alexandrova was a defiant and committed leader who was not afraid to confront Russian soldiers and tell them to stop destroying the hospital, which treats critically ill patients. Hospital staff proudly told Bernhardt that as the soldiers were getting ready to retreat, they told the staff members that they had a “tough boss.”

“The patients in this hospital have developmental, mental health, and physical challenges that have led to them being hospitalized. In some cases, they are quite old and frail. And during this time, they had to shelter in the hospital basement—a damp and dark place where you would not want to live,” Bernhardt said. He described how hundreds of patients with 30-40 staff were trapped in the basement during the Russian bombardment.

They had to stay in this basement for 40 days and 40 nights without access to water, heat, and electricity. The staff occasionally went out and managed to forage for food during lulls in the fighting. In fear of being shot, they would cook over open fires during the day while being undercover.

A destroyed residential building in Dnipro. Credit: World Food Programme

International Medical Corps’ involvement with Ukraine goes back to 1999 when it provided medical training to doctors and medical supplies and equipment. Now International Medical Corps operates hubs in seven Ukrainian cities—Chernihiv, Dnipro, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Stryi, and Vinnytsia—that provide relief services and training across the country.

International Medical Corps’ mission is primarily to be a first responder. A big part of its approach is to work within an existing health system, support it, and strengthen it. It also provides medicine or medical equipment, trains doctors, staff, and clinicians, and builds water and sanitation systems.

“We are a first responder. We go in, respond to the disaster, and stay to help strengthen existing systems, to make sure that the community is left stronger than when we first came in,” Bernhardt said, elaborating on International Medical Corps’ mission.

During the Russo-Ukrainian War, International Medical Corps so far has helped 122 hospitals, delivered more than 136,000 water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and non-food items (NFI), provided 53,661 medical services to healthcare facilities, provided 46,592 health consultations, and trained 914 people in psychological first aid.

“We’re trying to provide services to support the most vulnerable populations who suffer during a conflict. That can be children. That can mean the elderly. That can mean the disabled. It especially, unfortunately, means women and girls. We are working as hard as we can to ensure these vulnerable populations get the services they need. And, of course, we’re doing everything we can to ensure that we prevent that kind of violence from occurring in the first place,” Bernhardt said.

Another organization working within the war zones is the World Food Programme (WFP). It focuses on the broken commercial food supply chains providing food, supporting people with cash so people can make their own choices when buying food, and stabilizing and restoring public and private institutions and services.

People gather to receive food from World Food Programme’s food distribution. Credit: World Food Programme

In June, they assisted 2.6 million people in Ukraine through food distributions or cash where markets are functioning. Since March, WFP has transferred over 200 million US dollars in cash and cash vouchers to vulnerable Ukrainians. Fifty-five million US dollars of this was provided in July to close to 800,000 people. Internally displaced people receive 75 US dollars per person for up to three people per family.

WFP has also helped more than 115.5 million people in over 120 countries and territories. They were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in ending hunger.

“At this time, one in three households in Ukraine is food insecure, and the existing systems in Ukraine that feed tens of millions of people are falling apart. Our goal is to see an end to this conflict. Our job as humanitarians is to feed people and save lives. We’re willing to stay there as long as it’s needed to support the population and the most vulnerable people in Ukraine,” stated Kyle Wilkinson, Communications Officer for the WFP.

Kerri Murray, President of ShelterBox, was part of the organization’s first team in Kraków, Poland. ShelterBox provides emergency shelter and essential items to set up households, such as temporary shelters, mattresses, blankets, water purification, tools, solar lanterns, and hygiene supplies.

The Ukraine war has internally displaced nearly 6.5 million people, and ShelterBox focuses on projects to meet the needs of internally displaced people. It also has a project that is helping refugees who fled to Moldova, which has received the most refugees per capita of any European country.

ShelterBox has provided hygiene kits to displaced families – mainly women, children, the elderly, and the disabled. During this displacement crisis, it also provides cash to families fleeing Ukraine into Moldova to buy food, prescription medicines, and basic necessities.

ShelterBox has supported tens of thousands of people in Ukraine and hundreds of families in Moldova.

“Rapidly launching this response in Ukraine was challenging,” Murray said, noting that securing a supply chain and delivering aid into the country was difficult. “But we were absolutely committed to helping these families.”

Artem and Maksim play hockey in Hungary. Credit: Katie Wilkes, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

As the crisis unfolded and intensified, Red Cross supported more than 15 million people in Ukraine and surrounding countries. By teaming with several groups, such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Red Cross helped the wounded with medical care and provided first aid training in Ukraine. Red Cross also had a cash voucher assistance program.

“More than 700 ICRC staff are working in 10 locations across Ukraine to deliver relief items to people displaced from their homes, providing medicines and supplies to health care facilities, restoring water supply for millions of people, and other lifesaving activities,” Susan Malandrino, Communications Lead at American Red Cross. “For its part, the American Red Cross has contributed over 50 million US dollars to Ukraine crisis relief efforts and an additional 7.5 million US dollars to partners on the ground to provide meals and medical supplies within Ukraine.”

Malandrino recalls how a colleague on site met two young brothers from Kyiv, 15-year-old Artem and 10-year-old Maksim. When the war started, Artem and Maksim were at a hockey tournament.

They are currently living in one of the Red Cross shelters.

“While here, they play hockey to take their minds off the stress of missing family left behind in Ukraine. Artem says he talks to his father and grandmother daily and misses walking his dogs, including his favorite small highland terrier,” Malandrino explained.

The Hungarian Red Cross ensures each room has a small refrigerator, private bathroom, clean and fresh sheets, and provides wholesome meals from its restaurant.

“Because of Red Cross support, Artem and Maksim have a comfortable place to live and, for a few moments each day, play hockey and just be kids.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Amir Abdullah says that no matter how much improvement is made in food production, it will all be futile unless the issue of water security is addressed. He said humanitarian and food aid can never be enough to manage cascading climate shocks. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 2021 (IPS)

The intersection of crisis, climate change and COVID-19 has resulted in a “rapid rise in hunger”, according to United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Deputy Executive Director Amir Abdullah.

He was speaking at the “Building Food and Water Security in an Era of Climate Shocks” event organised by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). The meeting featured representatives from other UN bodies, farmers’ associations and startups working on water security and agriculture around the world.

Abdullah highlighted the numerous disasters that hit globally last year while the world was in the middle of the pandemic: destructive heat waves, wildfires, floods, storms, and locust outbreaks.

“Humanitarian aid can never be enough to manage these cascading shocks that keep breaking down food systems and pushing people into food and water crises,” he said.

He added that no matter how much improvement is made in food production, it will all be futile unless the issue of water security is addressed.

“We can deliver food assistance but if farmers don’t have adequate access to water resources for food production, people will just continue being hungry,” he said. “And if people don’t have access to clean water, they can’t retain the nutrition they need even if we provide them with food assistance.”

Betty Chinyamunyamu, CEO of the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi, said the past decade has witnessed an “onset of weather crises” which have made it extremely difficult for farmers to plan their sales.

“Increased incidences of new pests, diseases and unpredictable weather patterns make it more difficult for farmers to plan their farm enterprises. So when they’re not sure whether they are going to have a flood or whether they are going to have drought, it becomes very difficult to engage in initiatives that would otherwise be very rewarding for them,” Chinyamunyamu said. 

“That unpredictability of weather is really making agriculture less profitable for the farmers,” she added.

Cherrie Atilano, CEO and President of AGREA, which works to ensure fair trade in sustainable agriculture in the Philippines, brought up the importance of collaboration between the private and public sector. She pointed to an example that worked in the Philippines at the beginning of the pandemic.

Just a few days after the first lockdown, many farmers were left wondering where to take their produce, as their mobility had suddenly been restricted, she said. At the same time, in Manila, the country’s capital with a population of more than 12 million, people scrambled for groceries as supermarkets shelves were empty.

Her team addressed this by contacting the agriculture ministry asking for farmers’ access to work to be restored so long as they maintained COVID-19 protocols.

Meanwhile, Chinyamunyamu shared the role that digital platforms and innovative technology played during the crisis, especially in giving access to marginalised groups.

The lockdown was especially disruptive for the farmers in Malawi, because it came at a time which was the “only marketing season” for them, she said. Chinyamunyamu explained that farmers were able to address this challenge through innovative approaches, including using digital technology such as mobile phones

Farmers were able to share information with each other on markets, as well as developments about COVID-19 by communicating via mobile phone. This was especially important for marginalised groups because it established an important way to reach vulnerable communities.

“Even though women still have less access than men to mobile phones, if a woman has a mobile phone, it’s theirs — they have control over the usage,” she said. “So if you pass on information to women through mobile phones, that’s information that goes directly to them.”

However, concerns remain about what lies ahead.

“In the coming decades, many regions around the world are expected to experience increased water scarcity driven by climate change and exacerbated by increasing competition for water resources,” Abdullah said. 

“The battle for water will be one of the next ‘great challenges,’” he added.

Samir Ibrahim, co-founder of SunCulture, a startup for solar-powered generators and water pumps in Africa, shared his experience working with innovative technology on the continent.

He pointed out that new ways for the allocation of funds was crucial for the sustenance of such projects.

“What is important for the ‘newness’ is not necessarily new technologies,” he said. “What we’ve seen is that emerging markets were solving problems that have been solved in other parts of the world.”

He said that while their company did not invent solar irrigation, it was “the first to commercialise in Africa”.

“While technology is incredibly important, we had to do a lot of innovation on battery storage,” he added.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned that the world was facing a dual pandemic – COVID-19 and hunger and said the international community must prioritise starvation, conflict and migration to stave off a worldwide food crisis. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 16 2020 (IPS)

Food security has become a priority in the Caribbean as COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions have hit the tourism-dependent region hard.

The International Development Bank predicted in July that for Caribbean destinations most dependent on tourism such as Saint Lucia, 12 to 20 percent of the workforce could be affected by the pandemic. That country’s Red Cross COVID-19 Project Manager Marva Daniel told IPS that the impact of tourism jobs losses on low-income households has been particularly devastating.

“With hotel closures food insecurity has really been drastic. We started since March delivering food parcels,” she said. “We’re now moving into a phase where we are going to be issuing food vouchers. That people can also get fresh food. With packaging we could only deliver items with a long shelf life. The vouchers will allow them to expand their diet buying fresh food, meat and dairy items,” she said.

With some countries in the Caribbean relying on tourism for as much as 90 percent of GDP and employment, hotel closures and empty cruise ports have been devastating for the economy – and for families. Many governments announced relief packages, but those measures were for a few months and set against the backdrop of a protracted pandemic. And while resorts are slowly reopening and inviting tourists to work safely from the Caribbean, across the region, millions of hospitality workers remain on the breadline.

Daniel told IPS that the Red Cross’s target is 2,300 households. She says the agency is providing food relief along with risk communications that includes placing banners on public buses, reminding people to protect themselves and others through the 3W’s – washing hands, wearing masks and watching their distance. The agency has also produced public service announcements promoting psycho-social support for the public and those hit by unemployment.

The challenges being faced in the Caribbean are not unique to the region. COVID-19 restrictions interrupted food supply chains globally. In countries already facing food shortages, millions of mothers, children and the most vulnerable are going hungry.

In April this year, the head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned that the world was facing a dual pandemic – COVID-19 and hunger. Last week, David Beasley told the 3^rd Edition of the Paris Peace Forum that the international community must prioritise starvation, conflict and migration to stave off a worldwide food crisis.

“When I arrived at the WFP as Executive Director three years ago, the number of people on the brink of starvation was 80 million. That number spiked up to 135-145 million people in the last few years because of man-made conflict,” he said.  “Now, COVID comes on the scene and with economic deterioration and the ripple effect around the world, we’re moving from 135 million people on the brink of starvation to 270 million.”

The U.N. says the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize-winning agency continues to work on the front lines “providing more aid than ever before”. This includes work in countries like Yemen, which Beasley describes as “undeniably the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe,” reeling from war, extreme weather events, sparse water resources and hunger worsened by the consequences of COVID-19.

The WFP spent over $8 billion in humanitarian assistance in 2020, but Beasley estimates that it will need twice that amount next year. He says the international community must put more resources into combating starvation.

“2021 is going to be a very, very difficult year,” he said. “Let me be clear – if we don’t get the money we need in the strategic locations, you will have famine, destabilisation and mass migration. It’s that simple.”

Madagascar’s President Andy Rajoelina told the Paris Peace Forum, which ended on Friday, Nov. 13, that his country’s COVID-19 containment measures dealt a blow to food production.

“Food scarcity was made worse by the pandemic,” he said. “This was particularly true for the most isolated regions of Madagascar like the south, where the population was already suffering from chronic malnutrition and in some cases were starving.”

Rajoelina said his government is aware that millions of people in Madagascar must leave home every day to find food and for them, the lockdowns meant loss of jobs, food shortages and fear for the future. He said his administration is working with the international community to provide food and medical supplies to the most vulnerable, prioritising malnutrition and starvation in the country’s south – a region he concedes has been neglected for far too long. 

For regions in the Global South, COVID-19 is hampering efforts to achieve the U.N. goal to eradicate hunger by 2030. Food security is a fundamental human right and the humanitarian agencies say with movement, climate change and now the pandemic, help is needed to remain on course.

Meanwhile, Daniel told IPS that volunteers are bringing relief in an environment with a different set of protocols than they are used to, now interacting with the community from a safe distance. A food drive is taking place as officials in Saint Lucia deal with a double public health emergency – curbing the spread of COVID-19 and a Dengue outbreak. Daniel is also working with a looming deadline for this level of humanitarian assistance.

“Sadly, this component of the programme will end in December. We will continue as best as we can after that, but the food vouchers will be done by year-end,” she told IPS.

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Current food systems have been focusing more on just a few major staples that are providing calories eg. major cereals, rice, wheat, and maze. Emile Frison,an expert on conservation and agricultural biodiversity and a member of International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), says agricultural biodiversity is absolutely key not only to providing nutrition because it provides for a diversity of micro-elements, mineral vitamins etc that are absent and very poor in the major staples. Irrigated field in Kakamas, South Africa. Credit:Patrick Burnett/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 2020 (IPS)

Despite the World Food Programme (WFP) being awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in addressing global hunger, sustainable food systems expert Emile Frison believes a lot more needs to be done. This includes the rethinking of approaches to agricultural production, establishing deeper relationships between consumers and producers, and taking a wholistic approach towards socio-economic factors.

Emile Frison is an expert on conservation and agricultural biodiversity and a member of International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).

Frison, an expert on conservation and agricultural biodiversity and a member of International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), spoke with IPS a week after the Nobel committee acknowledged WFP for its rigorous approach to addressing the issue of hunger and, especially in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, “[demonstrating] an impressive ability to intensify its efforts”.   

“Unfortunately, this is not only looking at short term solutions,” he told IPS. “The WFP has been addressing the [coronavirus] crisis situation which of course is important but as is often the case, not enough attention is going into providing longer term solutions of developing sustainable resilient food systems and production systems. There’s always an emergency that keeps people away from thinking longer term.”

IPS publishes our interview with Frison on World Food Day. Excerpts follow.

Inter Press Service (IPS): In what ways could world leaders and local governments have been better prepared to address hunger issues before the coronavirus pandemic?

Emile Frison (EF): We know that on a global level, we produce enough food to feed everybody and even many more people than we are on the planet right now. The major problem of hunger is not of availability, but of access to food, the issue of quality and inequity in our society. That’s the important thing that has to be addressed if we want to really find long term solutions to the issue of hunger at the same time as poverty problems. 

IPS: You specifically work in the field of sustainable food systems and the deployment of agricultural biodiversity to improve nutrition and the resilience and sustainability of agricultural systems. What role does deployment of agricultural biodiversity have in improving nutrition?

EF: Our current food system has been, over the last 50 years, focusing more on just a few major staples that are providing calories: the major cereals, rice, wheat, maze, that have received the majority of the attention by research. This is leading certainly to providing calories but we know that calories are not providing health and nutrition. Agricultural biodiversity is absolutely key not only to providing nutrition because it provides for a diversity of micro-elements, mineral vitamins etc that are absent and very poor in the major staples, but it also provides for more sustainable systems from an environmental point of view. It allows us to address the climate crisis by being lower in emissions and fixing carbon in the soil and in the vegetation, in a more diverse vegetation including trees.

Agricultural biodiversity is really a key element of reversing the past trend of the last 50 or so years of ultra specialisation and focusing on just the production of these major staples at the expense of the rich diversity that used to be cultivated. It’s been more and more abandoned in development plans in efforts to so-called fight hunger.

IPS: Why has it been more abandoned in development plans?

EF: The whole education system has been focusing on trying to create an artificial environment that is ideal for production instead of understanding how nature is working. The so-called modern agriculture has been trying to create an environment where you see the plants, no longer the soil that feeds the plants. You put these synthetic fertilisers that are directly observed by plants and are actually killing the soil. So the soil becomes an inert substrate that is incapable of feeding plants. So you have to always put more and more fertilisers and because of the uniformity of the crops, the monocultures are becoming the norm. You have more and more pest diseases that are occurring, that are requiring more and more pesticides. And this is a situation not sustainable in the longer term.

We’re seeing decreases in productivity, in those areas that are using a large amount of pesticides and fertilisers. This is not an option and that’s why we have to rethink totally the agricultural paradigm from the one that creates this artificial environment where the fertilisers are feeding directly the plants, pesticides are protecting the plants rather than having an environment in which the diversity is responsible for the resilience. Because one crop will attract some pests and the neighbouring crop will attract others. So you never have the high density of pests in diverse systems that you have in large scale monocultures.

The whole production system has to be rethought in terms of using diversity as a major approach but also to think about rebuilding, and creating an environment where we don’t fight nature anymore, but we mimic nature. In natural forests, you don’t have to have fertilisers to have a very rich functioning natural system. What we have to do is learn the lessons from that through ecology. The approach, called agroecology, is applying these principles to make nature function through agriculture. This is a real rethinking of the production system as a whole using a certain number of principal that goes beyond cultural practices but also is also looking at social dimension of providing greater equity, empowering farmers in policies instead of having technology developed in laboratories that are often not answering the real problems of farmers, to have participatory research and co-innovation with farmers.

IPS: In what ways has this issue been affected by the coronavirus pandemic? 

EF: There have been many lessons: long value chains that have been developing over the last several decades, where ultra specialisation in commodities that are then being traded globally are the basis of the global food system. That has shown us vulnerability, especially in countries that were largely dependent on food imports. What has also been shown is that in areas where there are diversified production systems closer to the consumers and where there are direct links between producers and consumers, the food systems have been much more resilient. All over the world we’ve seen new connections with farmers being put in contact directly with consumers such as online purchase systems.

The COVID-19 situation has shown us what kind of options are there through shorter value chains and diversification of production, to make the whole system more resilient.

IPS: In light of the WFP being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, what role would you say  sustainable food systems play in efforts towards world peace?

EF: What is sure is that in areas where there is hunger, it has been leading to a lot of the conflicts that we are seeing in the last decade – especially ones causing large amounts of migration. What is also clear is that the industrial model of agriculture, with its specialisation and the power of a few major companies that control the input supply and the purchase and transformation of most of the food at the expense of a decent income for producers, is no longer a viable long term solution.

We must adopt a real, different model of agriculture including, bringing back diversity in the system, and applying the lessons we learn from nature and ecological science that teach us how soil is functioning and how the living microsms in soil play an extremely important role in having a productive system. We have demonstrated that agroecological systems are able not only to feed the world in quantity terms, but also doing it in much better quality terms. That is really the way forward and better recognised.

There’s obviously some vested interests that want to continue to sell their products and maintain the current system in place that are trying to fight the mainstreaming of agroecology and more sustainable production systems. But that has to be addressed and that’s a major responsibility for every citizen of the world but especially also civil society organisations that are really looking into these issues and putting these on the table of decision makers.

Excerpt:

A woman wearing a mask to protect herself from the contagion of the coronavirus, waits to buy food outside a store in the Playa municipality, in Havana, Cuba. As of Tuesday, Jun. 16, 1.7 million people have been affected by the virus across Latin America and the Caribbean -- doubling in the last week. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 18 2020 (IPS)

The multi-dimensional impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in Latin America could lead to a “hunger pandemic” if not addressed with urgency. 

Norha Restrepo, communications officer at the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Latin America office, shared this concern with IPS following a briefing by the United Nations agency on Tuesday about COVID-19’s impact on the region. As of Tuesday, Jun. 16, 1.7 million people have been affected by the virus across Latin America and the Caribbean — doubling in the last week.

Miguel Barreto, WFP’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, raised concerns about the region’s massive informal labour sector, which have been especially hard-hit by lockdowns, as well as the grave effects of other compounding factors such as food insecurity and climate change. 

“Our region already had problems related to economic and climate shocks, as well as insecurity and displacement,” he said at the briefing, adding that between 50 and 70 percent of workers in the region earn their income through jobs in the informal sector, which makes them more vulnerable and facing food insecurity under lockdown. 

“Now, with COVID-19 restrictions in place to save lives, millions have lost all or part of their income. Many do not know where their next meal is coming from,” he said. 

Restrepo echoed Barreto’s thoughts in conversation with IPS.

“In an extraordinary situation like this one, every other aspect of society will definitely be impacted,” she said. “But for the most vulnerable, the people who really depend on the society and the economy moving, the impact on hunger was immediately seen — and this can really get worse. So we definitely have to do much more to avoid this from becoming a hunger pandemic as well.” 

A vulnerable demographic

Experts all pointed out that Latin America and the Caribbean have recently become the hotspot for the virus because it’s a region that was already facing its share of struggles. 

“Latin American countries became hot spots because measures of prevention and control are much less effective than in industrialised countries,” Dr. Cesar Chelala, a global health consultant who has in the past voiced concerns about the public health issues in the region, told IPS.   

In a March 2019 report, Chelala detailed how issues such as “sprawling urbanisation, environmental problems, and increasing levels of obesity that affect all age” as well as prevalence of non-communicable diseases were a massive concern in the region.

With the virus being especially quick to spread in crowded areas, and affecting people with underlying conditions, the prevalence of Chelala’s highlighted factors are worrisome. 

“Any serious underlying condition lowers a person’s immunity and, as a result, the impact is much bigger. That is why not only very sick people but also older people are more prone to getting the most serious forms of the infection,” he told IPS.

Beyond the concerns of the direct impact of the virus, there are also concerns of secondary impacts — such as the consequences of the lockdown and food insecurity. 

With such a large part of the workforce being out of job during lockdown, the poor are only getting poorer, and having trouble accessing food — whether because of financial troubles or their inability to physically go to a store, said Restrepo of WFP.  

As a result, issues such as food insecurity have heightened, according to Restrepo, who added that with COVID-19, there has been an increase in people living with severe food insecurity — from 700,000 to 1.6 million people. 

Furthermore, she added, the migrant crisis is also affecting the situation. She said more than five million Venezuelan migrants are in the region, and are extremely vulnerable as they’re not part of any social protection system because they are not citizens.

These migrants also maintain informal jobs, and thus, for them it’s “extraordinarily complicated to cope,” she added. 

Meanwhile, other concerns about the individual economies in the region remain. 

Dr. David Alexander Walcott, Founder of NovaMed and a doctor in Jamaica, told IPS that given tourism is crucial for Jamaica’s economy, the lockdown means people are having to make difficult choices between earning a livelihood and remaining alive.

“One of the urgent issues to be addressed is how do we reopen our economy and allow the traditional sectors that have kept Jamaica afloat to thrive,” he said. “How is it that we tow the line between managing our caseload and being responsible from a public health perspective while being responsible from an economic perspective?” 

Solutions 

Potential solutions would require the collaboration of every actor, said Restrepo. 

In addition to that, Chelala pointed out the role the education sector can play in providing appropriate messages to the students and the general population. “Accessible water and sanitation, and the hygiene measures involved, are important to control the spread of the disease,” he added. 

Restrepo suggested that the countries would benefit from soft credit to governments by  international financial institutions. This way, she said, “governments can invest the money into protecting and supporting the most vulnerable people.”  

She also suggested social protection which can help people stay at home so those working in the informal work sector don’t have to go out or have to choose between death and an income.

She added: “Because the pandemic is such an enormous magnitude, it means everybody has to be involved — from the individuals to really enormous institutions with a lot of capital.”

WFP-chartered planes bring in supplies and equipment to help the humanitarian community respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. ©WFP Bangladesh/Gemma Snowdon

By John Aylieff
BANGKOK, May 21 2020 (IPS)

While most of the world self-isolates at home and skies are emptier than they have been for decades, humanitarian flights transporting life-saving aid are revving up around Asia and the Pacific.

Reaching people in war zones or natural disasters is never easy. With most flights grounded, borders closed and workers in quarantine, delivering supplies to families and communities in need in the COVID-19 era has become the greatest challenge the World Food Programme (WFP) has faced in its nearly 60-year history.

COVID-19 may be our biggest test yet. But this is when WFP steps up.

Connecting crisis response to logistics lifeline

Globally, since January, WFP, on behalf of the World Health Organization and the entire humanitarian community, has dispatched supplies to 94 countries to help governments and health partners respond to COVID-19

On 10 May, a WFP-chartered plane carrying COVID-19 medical supplies and aid workers left Kuala Lumpur. The destination: Yangon, Myanmar, where commercial international flights have been suspended since March. The connection was made possible with the funding provided by the European Union and the Government of Switzerland. The weekly air service will be utilized by the entire humanitarian and development community.

Also from Kuala Lumpur, one of the few places in the region where international connections are still possible, WFP’s humanitarian flights are coming to Bangladesh. Two deliveries, made earlier this month, included equipment and materials for COVID-19 prevention and management in the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar.

Humanitarian community in Afghanistan can now rotate their personnel in and out of the country with flights connecting Kabul and Doha. Similar operations are planned for the Pacific Island countries, which are even more reliant on air transport for basic goods and services.

Through a hubs-and-spokes system, medical cargo is transported from our logistics hubs in China and Malaysia to the COVID-19 frontlines in the region and also the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

In the coming days, we plan to connect more operations in other parts of the region to the logistics backbone.

Globally, since January, WFP, on behalf of the World Health Organization and the entire humanitarian community, has dispatched supplies to 94 countries to help governments and health partners respond to COVID-19. These shipments include personal protective equipment, such as masks, gloves and gowns, ventilators, as well as logistics equipment.

On 10 May, the first of a series of WFP-chartered planes arrived in Yangon, Myanmar from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, carrying COVID-19 medical supplies and aid workers. ©WFP Myanmar/Hkun Lat

Governments key to lifesaving work

“We are only as strong as the weakest,” the United Nations Secretary-General once said. Mr Guterres has asked all governments to grant permission for humanitarian flights to land until regular commercial flight services are restored.

With each flight, WFP and our partners will take all necessary precautions to avoid transmitting the virus. But without access, it will be a struggle to ensure that people everywhere have the medical supplies and equipment they need to face this pandemic.

Many of the countries in the region lack adequate healthcare facilities for their own people. To keep humanitarian workers safe and healthy – without burdening over-stretched medical services – we are asking some governments whose health care systems have the capacity to allow aid personnel access to life-saving medical assistance if required.

In just a few months, COVID-19 has sent shockwaves through societies and upended the livelihoods of people everywhere. Governments around the world are struggling to flatten the curve of the pandemic, racing against time to save the lives and livelihoods of their citizens.

At a time like this, it’s natural to focus on issues closer to home. But as long as COVID-19 is ravaging any country, it is a threat to us all.

We stand a far better chance to defeat the virus and restore livelihoods sooner rather than later by entrusting and leveraging each other’s strengths.

Protecting the humanitarian supply chain and humanitarian workers is a prerequisite to this success; especially if we are to prevent the health crisis from becoming a humanitarian catastrophe.

Excerpt:

Planeta Hatuleke, a small scale farmer of Pemba District in Southern Zambia, stands in a maize field. This year, she hopes that she will not be one of the country’s 2.3 million food insecure people thanks to the climate smart agriculture techniques she implemented while planting her crop in November. Courtesy: Friday Phiri

By Friday Phiri
LUSAKA and PEMBA DISTRICT, Zambia, Jan 15 2020 (IPS)

It is early Saturday morning and Planeta Hatuleke, a small scale farmer of Pemba District in Southern Zambia, awakens to the comforting sound of rainfall. As the locals say, the “heavens have opened” and it is raining heavily after a prolonged dry spell. 

“This is welcome after two weeks of a dry spell,” says Hatuleke with a sigh of relief. “The rainfall pattern has not been consistent so far; we could be headed for a repeat of last season” she adds pessimistically.

• The 2018/19 farming season was characterised by drought and prolonged dry spells, which, according to the government Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU), left 2.3 million people severely food insecure and in need of humanitarian food assistance.

Hatuleke along with her 8-member family members are part of the hunger stricken population. Last farming season, the family harvested only five 50Kg-bags of maize, 10 short of their annual food requirements.

“It has not been easy to feed my family since the five bags finished. I am grateful to government for relief food support but for big families like mine, we have to supplement through other means,” says the 55-year old widow. “As a family, we have been surviving on sales from our gardening activities.”

• Statistics from DMMU show that at least 70,000 metric tonnes of relief food (maize grain and maize meal) has been distributed to the affected people between September 2019 and January 2020.
• According World Food Programme (WFP) country director for Zambia, Jennifer Bitonde, the United Nations’ food agency “requires $36 million to effectively support the government in responding to the crisis.”
• WFP is currently supporting the government’s response by delivering government-supplied maize meal, as well as by procuring and delivering pulses to ensure a nutrition-sensitive food basket. WFP is also working closely with partners to monitor food distributions and guarantee that resources reach those most in need.
  • In a statement after receiving a contribution of $3.39 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to help meet the immediate food needs of drought-affected people in Zambia, Bitonde added that “USAID’s contribution represents approximately 10 percent of the total needs and will allow WFP to ensure that drought-affected people will not go to bed hungry during this year’s lean season.’’
  • Other partners who have made a contribution to WFP Zambia include the Swedish government, which has contributed $2 million, and the Italian government with a contribution of $ 610,000.

Last October, the three U.N. food agencies—the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and WFP—called 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.

They warned that a record 45 million people across the 16-nation Southern African Development Community would be severely food insecure in the next six months starting from October 2019.

At the time, they reported that there were more than 11 million people experiencing “crisis” or “emergency” levels of food insecurity (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Phases 3 and 4) in nine countries: Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar, Malawi, Namibia, Eswatini and Lesotho. 

“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 agro-pastoralists take advantage of the forecasted good rains, assuming they happen, as this will be crucial in helping them rebuild their livelihoods.”

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.

Interestingly, Zambia is experiencing both climate extremes at the same time. While farmers in the southwestern parts of the country are anxious about the rainfall pattern that has been erratic so far, their counterparts in the northeast are battling flash floods, adding pressure on the already overstretched resource base.

Over 300 families have been reported as being affected by floods in the Mambwe and Lumezi districts of Zambia’s Eastern Province.

And Zambian President Edgar Lungu, continues to urge government technocrats to work at finding a lasting solution to the climate problem.

“So as we provide relief, I think that we should put our heads together. My Permanent Secretaries are here so we can work together to find a lasting solution,” said Lungu when he toured and interacted with flood victims on Jan 9.  

• It is unanimously agreed globally that climate change is due to human activities that cause damage (either directly or indirectly) to the environment. Such activities include overexploitation of natural resources, pollution and deforestation, among others.

Experiencing a critical energy deficit, with over 2 million food-insecure people to feed due to a climate-induced droughts and flash floods in a single year, are key lessons for leaders and ordinary people alike.

This December, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25), Zambia’s Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources Ndashe Yumba highlighted the adverse effects of climate change on his country’s natural resource-sensitive sectors, such as energy and agriculture, and how the country was moving away from a business-as-usual approach.

“There is still increasing evidence that climate change is negatively impacting critical sectors of our country,” said Yumba during a high-level event at COP25.

“In the recent past, drastic reduction in precipitation and rising temperatures in Zambia has led to a reduced agricultural productivity by about 16 percent and subsequently slowed down our economic growth. While Zambia is still pursuing her aspirations on socio-economic development, it is mindful of the need to maintain a healthy environment in order to achieve sustainable development…a recipe to a healthy climate is a healthy environment,” he added.

Back in Pemba District in Southern Zambia, Hatuleke is hoping that climate smart agricultural principles which are routed in sustainable environmental management, and which she has recently implemented, will bring her a better harvest this year. 

“I ripped my field and planted early; just after the first rains in mid-November and as you can see, my maize is at tussling stage,” she says. “I am hopeful of a good harvest, provided it consistently rains in the remaining half of the season.”

Julio Berdegué, FAO representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, presents the region's Panorama of Food and Nutrition 2018 in Santiago, which has bad news due to the increase in hunger, malnutrition, overweight and obesity for the third consecutive year. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Nov 7 2018 (IPS)

“For the third consecutive year there is bad news” for Latin America and the Caribbean, where the numbers of hungry people have increased to “39.3 million people,” or 6.1 percent of the population, Julio Berdegué, FAO’s regional representative, said Wednesday.

At the regional headquarters of the United Nations agency in Santiago, Berdegué presented the conclusions of the Panorama of Food and Nutrition Security 2018, which brings more bad news: malnutrition and obesity also increased, in a situation closely linked to the persistence of inequality in the countries of the region.

The report was prepared jointly by the regional division of four U.N. agencies: FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The four organisations called on governments in the region to implement public policies that combat inequality and promote healthy and sustainable food systems."There is no material or scientific reason to justify hunger...We are issuing a wake-up call to governments and societies." -- Julio Berdegué

“There is no material or scientific reason to justify hunger,” Berdegué said during the presentation, pointing out that for the past five years, no progress has been made in the region, and that it has in fact slid backwards for the past three years.

“We are issuing a wake-up call to governments and societies,” he said.

The regional representative highlighted the case of Colombia where “peace has begun to pay dividends in the eradication of hunger,” referring to the positive effects of the peace deal reached by the government and the FARC guerrillas in 2016.

At the other extreme, Venezuela became one of the countries with the greatest number of hungry people: 3.7 million – 11.7 percent of the population.

Since 2014, the number of undernourished people has grown in Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela. The largest rise occurred in Venezuela, with an increase of 600,000 people from 2014 to 2017, according to the Panorama.

Other countries severely affected by hunger are Haiti – five million people, equivalent to 45.7 percent of the population – and Mexico – 4.8 million people, representing 3.8 percent of the population.

However, in both Haiti and Mexico, hunger has declined in the last three years. The same is true in Colombia and the Dominican Republic. But these are the only four countries in the region that managed to reduce hunger since 2014.

“If Haiti can do it (reduce hunger), all of the other countries can, too,” Berdegué said emphatically.

According to the Panorama, the rate at which the number of hungry people in the region grew accelerated: between 2015 and 2016 the number of undernourished increased by 200,000, but between 2016 and 2017, it grew by twice that number: 400,000 people.

For Berdegué, the numbers are dramatic because “it’s not about being closer to the goal of zero hunger (by 2030). The goal is not a few less hungry people,” he said, noting that this is a food-producing and -exporting region, where “there is no lack of food, what is missing is money to buy it.”

He added that serious food insecurity affects 47.1 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean, and said “the worst thing is that most of them live in South America, the richest part of the region. How is it possible that 62 percent of the hungry are in South America?”

The report establishes a close link between economic and social inequality and higher levels of hunger, obesity and malnutrition.

Five million children suffer from hunger, children in the poorest segment of the population, who are “condemned to a very limited life,” Berdegué said.

He pointed out that the four U.N. agencies found a correlation between hunger and belonging to some ethnic groups.

Referring to indigenous groups, he noted that “In Peru, 25 percent of Quechua children and 23 percent of Aymara children suffer from chronic malnutrition, while at the national level the proportion is 16 percent.”

At the same time, the number of obese people is growing by 3.6 million each year, and today one in four adults in the region are obese. And some 250 million people are overweight: 60 percent of the regional population.

Overweight affects 3.9 million children under the age of five, more than the global average of 5.6 per cent, the report says.

“It’s a rampant and out of control epidemic. We have never eaten so badly. We have to make a shift towards a healthy and nutritious diet,” Berdegué said.

He added that 18 countries in the region produce fruits and vegetables, but export most of them.

“It is essential to regulate fats and salt content in food. There are many people who can’t afford to eat healthy. School curricula should include healthy eating,” Berdegué said, suggesting possible solutions to deal with the epidemic.

Carissa F. Etienne, director of PAHO, said that “although malnutrition persists in the region, particularly in vulnerable populations, obesity and overweight also particularly affect these groups.”

“A multisectoral approach is needed, ranging from ensuring access to balanced and healthy food to addressing other social factors that also impact on these forms of malnutrition, such as access to education, water and sanitation, and health services,” she said in a connection from the organisation’s Washington headquarters.

In her view, “we must make progress in access to universal health so that all people can receive the care and prevention measures they need with regard to malnutrition and its long-term consequences.”

The Panorama states that hunger, malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity especially affect lower-income people, women, indigenous people, blacks and rural families in the region.

In Latin America, 8.4 percent of women face severe food insecurity, compared to 6.9 percent of men, and indigenous populations are more food insecure than non-indigenous populations.

In 10 countries, children from the poorest 20 percent of households suffer three times more stunting than the richest 20 percent.

According to the report, one of the main causes of the rise in malnutrition among particularly vulnerable population groups is changes in the region’s food systems and food cycle from production to consumption.

The greatest effects occur in the most excluded sectors which, although they have increased their consumption of healthy foods such as milk and meat, often have to opt for products high in fats, sugar and salt because they are cheaper.

With respect to the gender divide, the Panorama reports that 19 million women suffer from severe food insecurity, compared to 15 million men.

In all of the countries, the obesity rate for adult women is higher than for men; in 19 countries, the obesity rate for women is at least 10 percentage points higher than for men.

“Gender equity is a valuable policy instrument to reduce inequalities. We need to strengthen it in practice, which involves promoting equality in access to and control of household resources, as well as in decisions to empower women,” said Miguel Barreto, WFP regional director, from Panama City.

Zambian Farmer Lameck Sibukale showcasing his newly acquired ox, which he bought using earnings from a savings group. Credit: Friday Phiri/IPS

By Friday Phiri
LUSAKA, Zambia, Feb 14 2018 (IPS)

In the past, Lameck Sibukale only knew savings in the form of rearing chickens, goats and more importantly, cattle—a long cherished cultural heritage of the Tonga-speaking people of southern Zambia.

But thanks to a village savings scheme, the 78-year-old from Nachibanga village in Pemba district is now part of this growing financial inclusion crusade, bringing some fresh air to the functionality of the village economy.

“How I wish I was introduced to this concept earlier,” Sibukale told IPS. “This is a fantastic idea for us villagers who are far from formal banks, especially at a time like now when we need to save in case of crop failure, which has become common as a result of poor rainfall.”

Saving just over 200 dollars, Sibukale earned over 500 dollars from a portfolio of 2,100 dollars, which the 25-member group saved in eight months.

Using the farmers’ club concept, up to 25 members come together and form a solidarity group. The group meets on either a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis to save (buying shares at a stipulated price) based on their financial capabilities. The money is banked in a box whose keys are kept by two or three people for purposes of transparency. For financial sustainability, members are encouraged to borrow and pay back at an agreed minimal interest rate.

While there are several organisations championing savings for the majority unbanked rural population, Sibukale and his group are part of the World Food Programme (WFP)’s R4 rural resilience initiative.

Integrated solutions for emerging climate complications

One African proverb states: “If the rhythm is changing, so must the dance steps,” implying the need to develop new strategies to deal with emerging complex challenges such as climate change, which is compromising food, nutrition and income security—three key elements at the core of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 and 2, aimed at ending poverty and hunger.

Therefore, as climate change is already complicating global food systems, development actors are also looking to integrated approaches to sustain productivity and production especially for the over 500 million smallholder farmers who produce much of the world’s food.

For WFP, ending hunger will not be possible without increasing smallholder farmers’ productivity. Thus, according to Jennifer Bitonde, WFP Zambia Director, “R4 is one of the pro-smallholder farmer approaches adopted where food assistance is defined not as old-style food aid handouts, but rather as a comprehensive range of instruments, activities, and platforms that together empower vulnerable and food insecure people and communities to access nutritious food.”

In support of national efforts to boost productivity and strengthen farmers’ food and income security amidst climate shocks, R4 deploys a set of four risk management strategies integrated through the project, which combines risk reduction (improved resource management), risk transfer (insurance), prudent risk taking (microcredit), and risk reserves (savings).

According to Allan Mulando, head of Disaster Risk Management and Vulnerability Assessment at WFP Zambia, the idea is to support farmers with several layers of protection across the value chain starting from production up to market access.

“In addition to conservation agriculture, insurance and microcredit, savings groups are specifically put in place to pool together financial resources which act as a buffer against short term needs, especially in times of shocks such as droughts and floods which usually lead to crop failure, ultimately affecting the normal livelihood pattern of the people,” explains Mulando.

And this is exactly what happened to farmer Sibukale. Last season, he lost one of his oxen, which negatively affected his tillage activities through reduced animal draft power. “I am happy that I joined this group where I’ve earned enough to replace it,” he said, proudly pointing at his newly acquired ox.

Supporting improved productivity

Whereas conservation agriculture and weather insurance are two layers of protection to support improved productivity, Sibukale believes savings are an added incentive.

He told IPS how he managed to pay for his children’s school fees, bought farming implements and inputs (fertilizer, seed and a ripper), helping him to increase the area under conservation agriculture, an exercise he says “would not have been possible without the money I earned from the savings group.”

And Milimo Haluma, a member of Silekwa savings group of Sikwale village, testifies to improved productivity. Haluma says before now, he found it difficult to buy inputs for himself.

“But now, with savings, I am able to purchase inputs on time,” Haluma said. “Due to timely input purchase, my productivity has improved. Last season, I was able to produce 3.75 tons of maize on the same size of land where I’ve been producing an average of 1.5 tons in the past seasons.”

Haluma, whose savings group is looking for external financial support to grow their portfolio, adds that with the incentive of weather insurance, farmers are finding it easy to save the little they earn. “Insurance is providing us a peace of mind to buy shares in our savings groups for we know that we are covered in case of crop failure resulting from poor rainfall,” he says.

Global support for up scaling financial services

Based on such positive strides, weather insurance and other related financial services for farmers’ adaptation to climate change have become topical issues at the highest global decision making levels. For instance, at COP 23, a global partnership to provide more financial protection against climate risks—‘InsuResilience’ moved into higher ambition phase.

The Initiative, which was launched in 2015 by the G7 group of nations under the German Presidency, aims at providing insurance to 400 more million poor and vulnerable people by 2020, and increase the resilience of developing countries against the impacts of climate change and natural disasters. It brings together G20 and V20 nations—the most vulnerable nations including Island states.

“The Global Partnership is a practical response to the needs of those who suffer loss because of climate change,” said the COP23 President and Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.

Meanwhile, Thomas Silberhorn, German’s Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, announced support for the new global partnership of 125 million dollars as part of the launch.

This follows the £30 million commitment made by the UK Government in July 2017, via its Centre for Global Disaster Protection. The initiative supports data and risk analysis, technical assistance and capacity building according to countries’ needs and priorities in terms of concrete risk finance and insurance solutions.

Commenting on the initiative, Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change, said: “This new and higher ambition initiative represents one, shinning, example of what can be delivered when progressive governments, civil society and the private sector join hands with creativity and determination to provide solutions.”

The most recent example of support was in September 2017, when more than 55 million dollars was paid out to ten Caribbean countries within just 14 days after hurricanes Irma and Maria had wreaked disaster on the islands.

In Zambia, InsuResilience supports the NWK Agri-Services  cotton company, which offers direct weather and life insurance to small contract farmers. In 2015, some 52,000 farmers decided to buy insurance. Following a major drought in 2016, more than 23,000 farmers received payments.

And based on lessons from the R4 model which WFP has been piloting in Zambia since 2014, the Zambian government has this farming season incorporated weather insurance in its Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) E-voucher programme, which has also allocated 20 percent for legume inputs aimed at encouraging crop diversification, an inbuilt resilience measure promoting improved soil fertility and income for farmers.

“We are also saying let us support the farmers on the e-voucher to grow more than maize,” said Dora Siliya, Minister of Agriculture. “So we as government give 170 dollars, while the farmer makes a contribution of 40 dollars. And for the first time this year, from this money, 10 dollars is going to be Weather Index Insurance.”

AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina adressing delegates at the nutrition event while Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, World Food Prize Foundation, listens. Credit: Friday Phiri/IPS

By Friday Phiri
AHMEDABAD, India, May 24 2017 (IPS)

Developing Africa’s ‘grey matter infrastructure’ through multi-sector investments in nutrition has been identified as a game changer for Africa’s sustainable development.

Experts here at the 2017 African Development Bank’s Annual Meetings say investing in physical infrastructure alone cannot help Africa to move forward without building brainpower.“We can’t say Africa is rising when half of our children are stunted.” --Muhammad Ali Pate

“We can repair a bridge, we know how to do that, we can fix a port, we know how to do it, we can fix a rail, we know how to do that, but we don’t know how to fix brain cells once they are gone, that’s why we need to change our approach to dealing with nutrition matters in Africa,” said AfDB President, Akinwumi Adesina, pointing out that stunting alone costs Africa 25 billion dollars annually.

Malnutrition – the cause of half of child deaths worldwide – continues to rob generations of Africans of the chance to grow to their full physical and cognitive potential, hugely impacting not only health outcomes, but also economic development.

Malnutrition is unacceptably high on the continent, with 58 million or 36 percent of children under the age of five chronically undernourished (suffering from stunting)—and in some countries, as many as one out of every two children suffer from stunting. The effects of stunting are irreversible, impacting the ability of children’s bodies and brains to grow to their full potential.

On a panel discussion Developing Africa’s Grey Matter Infrastructure: Addressing Africa’s Nutrition Challenges” moderated by IFPRI’s Rajul Pandya-Lorch, experts highlighted the importance of urgently fighting the scourge of malnutrition.

Laura Landis of the World Food Programme (WFP) said the cost of inaction is dramatic. “We have to make an economic argument on why we need action,” she said. “The WFP is helping, in cooperation with the African Union and the AfDB, to collect the data that gets not just the Health Minister moving, but also Heads of State or Ministers of Finance.”

The idea is to get everyone involved and not leave nutrition to agriculture and/or health ministries alone. And panelists established that there is indeed a direct link between productivity and growth of the agriculture sector and improved nutrition.

Baffour Agyeman of the John Kuffuor Foundation puts it simply: “It has become evident that it is the quality of food and not the quantity thereof that is more important,” calling for awareness not to end at high level conferences but get to the grassroots.

Assisting African governments to build strong and robust economies is accordingly a key priority for the AfDB. But recognizing the potential that exists in the continent’s vast human capital, the bank included nutrition as a focus area under its five operational priorities – the High 5s.

And to mobilise support at the highest level, the African Leaders for Nutrition (ALN) initiative was launched last year, bringing together Heads of State committed to ending malnutrition in their countries.

As a key partner of this initiative, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation foresees improved accountability with such an initiative in place. “ALN is a way to make the fight against malnutrition a central development issue that Ministers of Finance and Heads of State take seriously and hold all sectors accountable for,” said Shawn Baker, Nutrition Director at the Foundation.

However, African Ministers of Finance want to see better coordination and for governments to play a leading role in such initiatives to achieve desired results. “Cooperation and coordination are key between government and development partners,” said Sierra Leone’s Finance and Economic Development Minister Momodu Kargbo. “Development partners disregard government systems when implementing programmes whereas they should align and carefully regard existing government institutions and ways of working.”

Notwithstanding the overarching theme of Africa rising, Muhammad Ali Pate, CEO of Big Win Philanthropy, says, “We can’t say Africa is rising when half of our children are stunted.” He pointed out the need to close the mismatch between the continent’s sustained GDP growth and improved livelihood of its people.

With the agreed global SDG agenda, Gerda Verburg, Scaling Up Nutrition Movement Coordinator sees nutrition as a core of achieving the goals. “Without better nutrition you will not end poverty, without better nutrition you will not end gender inequality, without better nutrition you will not improve health, find innovative approaches, or peace and stability, better nutrition is the core,” she says.

Therefore, developing Grey Matter Infrastructure is key to improving the quality of life for the people of Africa. But it won’t happen without leadership to encourage investments in agriculture and nutrition, and more importantly, resource mobilization for this purpose.

Women do demonstrations during a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Farmer Field Schools training in Zimbabwe. Credit: Sally Nyakanyanga/IPS

By Sally Nyakanyanga
HARARE, Mar 22 2017 (IPS)

To take his mangoes to Shurugwi, 230 kms south of Harare, requires Edward Madzokere to hire a cart and wake up at dawn. The fruit farmer sells his produce at the nearest “growth point” at Tongogara (the term for areas targeted for development) where the prices are not stable.

“As a fruit grower, I have been forced to sell the fruits for very little rather than let them rot,” he told IPS.“LFSP is improving farmers’ ability to buy inputs and sell their products by strengthening farmer groups, improving farmers’ access to financial services, connecting farmers to national and regional markets.” -- FAO's Ali Said Yesuf

The poor performance of the economy has not made life easier for Madzokere, who struggles to provide for his family’s basic needs.

“I wish to have knowledge to make mango fruit jam or to be able to dry fruits for selling,” he said. Madzokere believes with better information and the creation of links to outside markets for his produce, he can go a long way in this sector.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has highlighted the concentration of smallholder farmers in subsistence farming rather than farming as a business, which means they have low demand for inputs, resulting in few incentives for input suppliers to reach the farmers.

For Elias Matongo, an agribusiness dealer in Shurugwi, it’s the same story. Matongo has been struggling to convince financial institutions to give him enough capital to expand his business. So far he has only managed to raise 2,500 dollars, which isn’t enough.

“Agricultural inputs are very expensive, I need to get a loan for 5,000 dollars and more to be able to make farming inputs available and closer to farmers,” Matongo told IPS.

FAO notes that 68 percent of Zimbabweans live in rural areas, where the economy is dominated by agriculture. In 2012, 76 percent of rural households were found to be poor. The agency further states that smallholder farmers often live in remote locations where infrastructure is poor and where input suppliers and buyers do not travel.

Ali Said Yesuf, FAO’s Chief Technical Advisor, told IPS that his organization, with financial support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) of 72 million dollars, has launched the Livelihood and Food Security Program (LFSP) to increase agricultural productivity, increase incomes, improve food and nutrition security, and reduce poverty in rural Zimbabwe. The project, which commenced in 2015, will ultimately be implemented in eight districts in the country.

“LFSP will actively address the specific constraints that smallholder farmers face in raising the productivity of their farms and creating markets for their farming produce,” says Yesuf.

More than 349,000 Zimbabweans are expected to be reached by 2018, selected based on poverty levels, food uncertainty and potential for market development.

“LFSP is improving farmers’ ability to buy inputs and sell their products by strengthening farmer groups, improving farmers’ access to financial services, connecting farmers to national and regional markets,” Yesuf said.

Another key player, the World Food Program (WFP), is also working with FAO to support 5,389 smallholder farmers with the production of drought tolerant small grains, in order to strengthen their resilience. Last December, 93 percent of the planned 646 hectares were planted in selected areas in the country, including extension services, as WFP and FAO provide farming inputs such as seeds and fertilizers to small-scale farmers.

Eddie Rowe, WFP Country Director, said integrated strategies for reducing and mitigating risks are essential to overcome hunger, achieve food security and enhance resilience.

“Building resilience before, during and after disasters is necessary for supporting the government of Zimbabwe to achieve food security and adequate nutrition for all people by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals,” Rowe told IPS.

FAO believes smallholder farmers play a critical role in food and nutrition security in Zimbabwe as they account for the bulk of the food that is produced in the country. Zimbabwe’s has since put in place its Country Strategic Plan (2017-2021) to enable smallholder farmers to have increased access to well-functioning markets by 2030 supporting initiatives that promote efficient and profitable marketing.

In Manicaland Province, the Extended Nutrition Impact for Positive Practice (ENIPA) has been introduced. The program is a nutrition behaviour change methodology for promoting identified good nutrition and health practices. The approach encourages the participation of men to so that they become the change agents and champions in the communities.

“Men’s participation is transformative as it transforms the household decision-making dynamics. It’s turning out that a man who understand the importance of consuming nutritious food will support his wife to purchase/grow the same,” Yesuf said.

The project is providing training in nutrition-sensitive agriculture through modules such as healthy harvest where there is selection, production, processing and preparation of diversified food types.

Supporting small holder farmers in the country is a certain path to sustainable production, with farmers like Madzokere already learning new concepts, broadening their horizons and focusing on outside markets. In this context, investing in agriculture simply makes good business sense.

Nearly half the children in drought-stricken South Madagascar are malnourished. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
AMBOVOMBE, Madagascar, Jul 8 2016 (IPS)

Voahevetse Fotetse can easily pass for a three-year-old even though he is six and a pupil at Ankilimafaitsy Primary School in Ambovombe district, Androy region, one of the most severely affected by the ongoing drought in the South of Madagascar.

“Fotetse is just like many of the pupils here who, due to chronic malnutrition, are much too small for their age, they are too short and too thin,” explains Seraphine Sasara, the school’s director.

The school has a total population of 348 – 72 boys and 276 girls – and they range from three to 15 years. Fewer boys stay in school as they spend most of their time helping on the farm or grazing the family livestock.

The tide, however, turns when the girls reach 15 years, at which point most are withdrawn from school and married off.

But in school or out of school, nearly half of the children in Southern Madagascar have not escaped malnutrition. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says that stunting –  where children are too short for their age – affects at least 47 percent of children under five.“I feed my eight children on rice for breakfast and supper but for lunch, they have to eat cactus fruits." -- Mamy Perline

Compared to acute malnutrition, which can develop over a short period and is reversible, stunting has more far-reaching consequences.

“Stunting is a gradual and cumulative process during the 1,000 days from conception through the first two years of a child’s life,” Sasara told IPS.

It develops as a result of sustained poor dietary intake or repeated infections, or a combination of both.

“It is not just about a child being too short for their age, it has severe and irreversible consequences including risk of death, limited physical and cognitive capacities,” Sasara said.

Statistics show that two million children in this Southern African country are stunted, placing Madagascar fourth in the “Global Chronic Malnutrition” table.

In February this year, though the global acute malnutrition level reached an average of eight percent, it is much higher in many regions in Southern Madagascar where most districts have surpassed the critical threshold of 10 percent.

Rainfall deficit and recurrent drought in Southern Madagascar has led to the deterioration of household food security, which has had a significant impact on the nutritional status of children under five.

Sasara says that the situation has been worsened by the rice eating culture across Madagascar “where children eat rice for breakfast, lunch and supper.”

But Mamy Perline told IPS that even rice is not always available. “I feed my eight children on rice for breakfast and supper but for lunch, they have to eat cactus fruits,” she said.

According to the WFP, which runs a school feeding programme in affected districts, Tsihombe district in Androy region is the most affected, with an average of 14 percent of children under five presenting signs of acute malnutrition.

WFP estimates show that nearly 50 percent of the Malagasy children under five suffer from iron deficiency which causes anemia.

Consequently, of every 1,000 live births, 62 result in children dying before they reach five years.

The lack of clean water and proper sanitation has compounded the situation facing the South.

The education sector continues to bear the brunt of the severe drought, with statistics by various humanitarian agencies including WFP showing that the net primary education enrolment rate in Madagascar is on a downward spiral.

Though an estimated 96.2 percent of children were enrolled in 2006, the number had dwindled to 69.4 percent in 2012, with Sasara saying that the current enrolment is likely to be much lower as children are too hungry to stay in school.

This is the case in Tanandava village, Amboasary district, Anosy region, where hundreds of out of school children gather each day to receive a meal from the village canteen offered by Catholic Relief Services, a humanitarian agency working in the area.

WFP statistics further show that the number of out of school children between six and 12 years is estimated at 1.5 million, with regions such as Anosy, Androy and Atsimo Andrefana in the South of Madagascar which have high rates of food insecurity posting alarmingly low levels of school performance.

Since 2005 WFP has implemented a school feeding programme, providing daily fortified meals to nearly 300,000 children in 1,300 primary schools in the south of the country but also in the urban slums of Antananarivo, Tulear and Tamatave.

“The meals are fortified with micronutrients and are crucial in breaking the malnutrition cycle in this country,” Sasara said.

The school feeding programme is a joint community effort where parents are involved in the preparation of the food, therefore providing a platform for the implementation of other interventions geared towards improving the health and nutrition of vulnerable children.

These interventions access to water and sanitation, which are twin problems in this region.

“When it rains and water collects in potholes on the road, this is the water we collect in containers for drinking, cooking and washing. It does not matter how many cars or people have stepped into the water, it is the only source we have,” says Perline.

Given the increase in acute malnutrition, a contributing factor to child mortality, WFP supports the National Office for Nutrition through its Regional Office for Nutrition, which continues to provide supplementary feeding programs for the treatment of moderate acute malnutrition across villages in the South.

“Treating children affected by moderate acute malnutrition can reduce drastically the number of those affected by severe acute malnutrition and to restore an adequate nutritional status,” says Yves Christian, Head of Regional Office for Nutrition.

WFP is further providing technical assistance to the government at various levels that is expected to result in a nationally owned school feeding programme.

New modalities of school feeding will also be piloted at the start of the next school year later in September 2016.

Farmers are in despair at the drought crisis in Southern Madagascar, where at least 1.14 million people are food insecure. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
BEKILY, Madagascar, Jun 14 2016 (IPS)

Havasoa Philomene did not have any maize when the harvesting season kicked off at the end of May since like many in the Greater South of Madagascar, she had already boiled and eaten all her seeds due to the ongoing drought.

Here, thousands of children are living on wild cactus fruits in spite of the severe constipation that they cause, but in the face of the most severe drought witnessed yet, Malagasy people have resorted to desperate measures just to survive.

“We received maize seeds in January in preparation for the planting season but most of us had eaten all the seeds within three weeks because there is nothing else to eat,” says the 53-year-old mother of seven.

She lives in Besakoa Commune in the district of Bekily, Androy region, one of the most affected in the South of Madagascar.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that an estimated 45,000 people in Bekily alone are affected, which is nearly half of the population here.

Humanitarian agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) estimate that 1.14 million people lack enough food in the seven districts of Southern Madagascar, accounting for at least 80 percent of the rural population.

The United Nations World Food Programme now says that besides Androy, other regions, including Amboassary, are experiencing a drought crisis and many poor households have resulted to selling small animals and their own clothes, as well as kitchenware, in desperate attempts to cope.

After the USAID’s Office of U.S Foreign Disaster Assistance through The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) organised an emergency response in January to provide at least 4,000 households in eight communes in the districts of Bekily and Betroka with maize seeds, many families had devoured them in less than three weeks.

Philomene told IPS that “the seeds should have been planted in February but people are very hungry.”

Due to disastrous crop production in the last harvesting season, many farmers did not produce enough seeds for the February planting season, hence the need for humanitarian agencies to meet the seed deficit.

Farmers like Rasoanandeasana Emillienne say that this is the driest rainy season in 35 years.

“I have never experienced this kind of hunger. We are taking one day at a time because who knows what will happen if the rains do not return,” says the mother of four.

Although the drought situation has been ongoing since 2013, experts such as Shalom Laison, programme director at ADRA Madagascar, says that at least 80 percent of crops from the May-June harvest are expected to fail.

The Southern part of Madagascar is the poorest, with USAID estimates showing that 90 percent of the population earns less than two dollars a day.

According to Willem Van Milink, a food security expert with the World Food Programme, “Of the one million people affected across the Southern region, 665,000 people are severely food insecure and in need of emergency food support.”

Against this backdrop, the U.S. ambassador to the UN Agencies in Rome (FAO, IFAD and WFP), David Lane, has urged the government to declare the drought an emergency as an appeal to draw attention to the ongoing crisis.

Ambassador Lane says that though the larger Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) member states are making plans to declare an emergency situation in 13 countries in the southern region, including Madagascar, “the government of Madagascar needs to make an appeal for help.”

“Climate change is getting more and more volatile but the world does not know what is happening in Southern Madagascar and this region is indicative of what is happening in a growing number of countries in Southern Africa,” he told IPS during his May 16-21 visit to Madagascar.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), these adverse weather conditions have reduced crop production in other Southern African nations where an estimated 14 million people face hunger in countries including Southern Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Malawi and South Africa.

Thousands of households are living precarious lives in the regions of Androy, Anosy and Atsimo Andrefana in Southern Madagascar  because they are unable to meet their basic food and non-food needs through September due to the current El Niño event, which has translated into a pronounced dry spell.

“An appeal is very important to show that the drought is longer than usual, hence the need for urgent but also more sustainable solutions,” says USAID’s Dina Esposito.

The ongoing situation is different from chronic malnutrition, she stressed. “This is about a lack of food and not just about micronutrients and people are therefore much too thin for their age.”

She says that the problem with a slow onset disaster like a drought as compared to a fast onset disaster like a cyclone – also common in the South – is to determine when to draw the line and declare the situation critical.

Esposito warns that the worst is yet to come since food insecurity is expected to escalate in terms of severity and magnitude in the next lean season from December 2016 to February 2017.

Children have born the brunt of Iraq’s on-going conflict. Credit: DFID – UK Department for International Development/CC-BY-2.0

By Kanya D'Almeida
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 25 2015 (IPS)

In the hopes of better responding to the needs of over three million displaced Iraqis, United Nations aid agencies today launched a national hotline to provide information on emergency humanitarian services like food distribution, healthcare and shelter.

The ongoing crisis in Iraq has spurred a refugee crisis of “unprecedented” proportions, with over 3.1 million forced into displacement since January 2014 alone, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

IDPs are scattered across 3,000 locations around the country, with many thousands in remote areas inaccessible by aid workers, said a joint statement released Monday by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), together with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In total, 8.2 million Iraqis – nearly 25 percent of this population of 33 million – are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Speaking to IPS over the phone from the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, Kareem Elbayar, programme manager at the U.N. Office of Project Services (UNOPS), which is running the call center, explained that the new service aims to provide life-saving data on almost all relief operations being carried out by U.N. agencies and humanitarian NGOs.

Still in its pilot phase, the Erbil-based center can be reached via any Iraqi mobile phone by dialing 6999.

“We have a total of seven operators who are working a standard working day, from 8:30am to 5:30pm [Sunday through Thursday]. They speak Arabic, English and both Sorani and Badini forms of Kurdish,” Elbayar told IPS.

The number of calls that can be routed through the information hub at any given time depends on each individual user’s phone network: for instance, Korek, the main mobile phone provider in northern Iraq, has made 20 lines available.

“That means 20 people can call in at the same time, but the 21^st caller will get a busy signal,” Elbayar said.

Other phone providers, however, can provide only a handful of lines at one time.

Quoting statistics from an August 2014 report by the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) network, Elbayar said mobile phone penetration in the war-ravaged country is over 90 percent, meaning “nearly every IDP has access to a cell phone” – if not their own, then one belonging to a friend or family member.

Incidentally, it was a recommendation made in the CDAC report that first planted the idea of a centralized helpline in the minds of aid agencies, made possible by financial contributions from UNHCR, the WFP, and OCHA.

Elbayar says pilot-phase funding, which touched 750,000 dollars, enabled UNOPS to procure the necessary staff and equipment to get a basic, yearlong operation underway.

It was built with “expandability in mind”, he says – the center has the capacity to hold 250 operators at a time – but additional funding will be needed to extend the initiative.

Establishing the hotline is only a first step – the harder part is getting word out about its existence.

Relief agencies are putting up flyers and stickers in camps, but 90 percent of IDPs live outside the camps in communities doing their best to protect and provide for war-weary civilians on the run, according to OCHA’s latest Humanitarian Response Plan for Iraq.

“Both the Federal Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government have offered to do a mass SMS blast to all the mobile phone holders in certain areas,” Elbayar explained, “so we hope to be able to send a message to every cell phone in Iraq with information about the call center.”

Violence and fighting linked to the territorial advance of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the government’s counter-insurgency operations have created a humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

The 2015 Humanitarian Response Plan estimates that close to 6.7 million people do not have access to health services, and 4.1 million of the 7.1 million people who currently require water, sanitation and hygiene services are in “dire need”.

Children have been among the hardest hit, with scores of kids injured, abused, traumatized or on the verge of starving. Almost three million children and adolescents affected by the conflict have been cut off from schools.

Fifty percent of displaced people are urgently in need of shelter, and 700,000 are languishing in makeshift tents or abandoned buildings.

In June OCHA reported, “A large part of Iraq’s cereal belt is now directly under the control of armed groups. Infrastructure has been destroyed and crop production significantly reduced.”

As a result, some 4.4 million people require emergency food assistance. Many are malnourished and tens of thousands skip at least one meal daily, while too many people often go an entire day without anything at all to eat.

Whether or not the helpline will significantly reduce the woes of the displaced in the long term remains to be seen, as aid agencies grapple with major funding shortfalls and the number of people in need shows no sign of declining.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

This little boy, an Afghan refugee, eats a piece of candy outside his family’s makeshift tent. Credit: DVIDSHUB/CC-BY-2.0

By Kanya D'Almeida
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 2015 (IPS)

As the number of civilians impacted by the intensifying conflict in Afghanistan rises along with the fighting, humanitarian agencies are struggling to meet the needs of the wounded, hungry and displaced.

The first half of 2015 has seen “record high levels” of civilian casualties, the United Nations relief agency said Tuesday, with civilian deaths touching 1,592 and total non-combatant casualties standing at over 4,900 – a one-percent increase compared to the number of casualties in the same period in 2014.

Fresh fighting in the provinces of Helmand, Kunduz, Faryab and Nangarhar are indicative of the geographic spread of the conflict, while tensions and sporadic clashes all across the central regions are forcing huge numbers of civilians from their homes.

An estimated 103,000 people have been displaced by the conflict in 2015 alone, including from locations hitherto untouched by forced population movements including Badakshan, Sar-i-Pul, Baghlan, Takhar and Badgis, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its mid-year review released on Aug. 18.

Clashes between the Taliban and other armed opposition groups are becoming more frequent, and the fragmentation of these groups only means that both the complexity and geographic extent of the conflict will continue to worsen.

Having received only 195 million dollars, or 48 percent of its 406 million-dollar funding requirement as of July, the U.N.’s humanitarian response plan is faltering.

Funding for every single relief “cluster” identified by OCHA is failing to keep pace with civilians’ needs. So far, the U.N. has received only 3.5 million dollars of the required 40 million dollars for provision of emergency housing, while funding for food security and health are falling short by 56 million and 29 millions dollars respectively.

Far more refugees have returned to the country, primarily from Pakistan, in the first half of 2015 compared to the same period last year, with 43,695 returnees as of July 2015 compared to 9,323 in 2014.

OCHA noted, “Overall return and deportee rates of undocumented Afghans from Iran and Pakistan stand at 319,818 people. At the same time, over 73,000 undocumented Afghans returned from Pakistan, which is on average six times higher per day than in 2014.”

U.N. officials say they need at least 89 million dollars to adequately meet the needs of refugees, but so far only 22.5 million dollars have been pledged.

As is always the case, providing adequate water and sanitation facilities is one of the top priorities of the humanitarian plan in order to prevent the outbreak of disease, but though the U.N. has put forward a figure of 25 million dollars for this purpose, only 15 million dollars are currently available.

“An increase in people requiring humanitarian assistance coupled with insufficient funding for food security agencies, particularly WFP [the World Food Programme], means that programmes for conflict IDPs, vulnerable returnees, refugees and malnourished children are all seriously under-resourced and in some cases have been terminated,” the report revealed.

Data on affected populations are believed to be incomplete owing largely to inaccessibility of the most heavily embattled regions, prompting U.N. officials to warn that the real number of people in need of critical, lifesaving services and supplies could be even higher than current estimates.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

*CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that civilian casualties in the first six months of 2015 saw an increase of 43 percent compared to the same period in 2014.

A child stands amid the rubble of what was once his home, after an aerial bombardment on the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria. Credit: Freedom House/CC-BY-2.0

By Kanya D'Almeida
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 9 2015 (IPS)

Barely 10 months ago, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said the refugee population from Syria had reached the three million mark. Today, the latest data from the field show that the number has passed four million.

“This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said in a statement on Jul. 9.

"I took [my son] to the field hospital in Tafas. They tried to help him but couldn't, since the appropriate equipment is not available in Syria. He needed to go to Jordan for treatment." -- Murad, the father of a 27-day-old baby injured in a barrel bomb attack in Syria
“It is a population that deserves the support of the world but is instead living in dire conditions and sinking deeper into abject poverty.”

Midway through its fifth year, the Syrian conflict that began in March 2011 has reached catastrophic heights, and yet shows no sign of abating.

What started out as mass demonstrations against long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad now involves multiple armed groups including fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

A quarter of a million people are dead, according to estimates by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A further 840,000 are injured, with many thousands maimed for life.

And as U.N. agencies struggle to cobble together the funds needed to heal, house and feed millions who have fled bullet-ridden towns and demolished cities, the exodus just keeps growing.

A UNHCR press release issued Thursday said Turkey is hosting 1.8 million Syrians, more than any other nation in the region. Over 250,000 of these refugees are living in 23 camps established and maintained by the Turkish government.

Other countries in the region that have opened their doors to scores of families fleeing the fighting include Lebanon (currently home to over 1.7 million Syrians), Jordan (hosting 629,000 refugees), Iraq (249,000) and Egypt (132,000).

In every single one of these countries, health and infrastructure facilities are quickly nearing breaking point as the hungry, sick and wounded arrive in droves.

On Jul. 9 Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that Jordanian hospitals are groaning under a huge patient burden, including numerous Syrians injured by barrel bombs.

In the last two weeks alone more than 65 war-wounded patients turned up at the emergency room of Al-Ramtha hospital in northern Jordan – less than three miles from the Syrian border – where MSF teams have been working with the Jordanian Ministry of Health to provide emergency care to refugees.

The medical humanitarian organisation has called repeatedly for an end to the use of these deadly, improvised weapons, which are typically constructed from oil drums, gas cylinders or water tanks filled with explosives and locally-sourced scrap metals dropped from high-altitude helicopters.

Due to the wide impact radius of barrel bomb attacks, victim often suffer wounds that are impossible to treat within Syria’s borders, where many health facilities have been reduced to rubble in the past five years.

“More than 70 percent of the wounded we receive suffer from blast injuries, and their multiple wounds tell their stories,” Renate Sinke, project coordinator of MSF’s emergency surgical programme in Ramtha, said in the statement released Thursday.

Dr. Muhammad Shoaib, MSF’s medical coordinator in Jordan, added, “A significant proportion of the patients we receive have suffered head injuries and other multiple injuries that cannot be treated inside southern Syria, as CT-scans and other treatment options are limited.”

One of the patients at Al-Ramtha Hospital, the father of a 27-day-old child who suffered head injuries as a result of shrapnel from a barrel bomb, recounted his family’s plight, which mirrors the experience of millions of civilians caught in the crossfire of the deadly conflict.

“At 9:00 a.m., a barrel bomb hit our house in Tafas […]. When I heard the news, I dropped what I was doing and I ran to the house as fast as I could […]. I saw my little boy. He was quiet and his head seemed to be injured. I took him to the field hospital in Tafas. They tried to help him but couldn’t, since the appropriate equipment is not available in Syria. He needed to go to Jordan for treatment,” Murad, the boy’s father, told MSF staff.

“It took us one-and-a-half hours from the time of injury until we arrived at the border, and some more before arriving in Ramtha. Now, all I want is for my baby to be better and go back to Syria.”

It is families like these that comprise the bulk of Syrian refugees, the highest recorded since 1992 when Afghan refugees reached an estimated 4.6 million, says the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Indeed, the figure from Syria could well be even higher than field reports suggest, and does not include the roughly 270,000 asylum applications by Syrians in Europe. A further 7.2 million people are displaced inside Syria itself, in remote or heavily embattled regions.

Worse, officials say, is the apparently inverse relationship between emergency needs and humanitarian funding: with the former constantly rising, while the latter shrinks.

UNHCR and its partners had requested 5.5 billion dollars for relief operations in 2015, but so far only a quarter of those funds have been received.

The World Food Programme (WFP), tasked with feeding about six million Syrians inside the country and in the surrounding region, is facing a massive shortfall, and warned last week that unless immediate funding became available, half a million people could starve.

There is also the very real possibility that over 1.7 million people will have to face the coming winter months without fuel or shelter.

As aid supplies dwindle, desperate and impoverished families are sending their children out to earn a living – according to a joint report released this week by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Save the Children, three quarters of all refugee households surveyed reported that children have become breadwinners.

Against the backdrop of soaring poverty rates, these findings are perhaps not unexpected. An estimated 86 percent of refugees outside of camps in Jordan, for instance, live below the poverty line, while a further 55 percent of refugees in Lebanon are living in “sub-standard” shelters, according to the refugee agency.

While world leaders oscillate between political and military solutions to the crisis, Syrians are faced with a choice: death by shrapnel at home or death by starvation abroad?

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Syrian children outside their temporary home, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Credit: DFID – UK Department for International Development/CC-BY-2.0

By Zhai Yun Tan
WASHINGTON, Jul 2 2015 (IPS)

The United Nations’ food aid organisation, the World Food Programme (WFP), said on Jul. 1 that up to 440,000 refugees from war-torn Syria might have to go hungry if no additional funds are received by August.

WFP, the world’s largest humanitarian agency dedicated to fighting hunger, provides food every month to nearly six million people in need in Syria and the surrounding region.

“Every time we take one step forward, we fall ten steps back. I have given up the hope that we will ever live normally again. I know the world has forgotten us; we’re too much of a burden." -- Fatmeh, a Syrian refugee who fled to Lebanon three years ago
Though the agency received 5.38 billion dollars in 2014, the continuing emergencies in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere mean that needs now far outpace available funding.

From assisting an estimated 2.5 million refugees last year, limited funding has forced the organisation to scale back its operations, with the result that just 1.6 million refugees are currently receiving rations.

A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report published in March 2015 revealed that an estimated 3.33 million refugees have fled Syria since 2014, making Syrians the second largest refugee population in the world, after the Palestinians.

The cuts come at a time when Syrian refugees are spending their fourth year away from home, unable to celebrate the annual Ramadan festival, one of the most important religious occasions celebrated by Muslims worldwide.

The upcoming winter may leave up to 1.7 million people without fuel, shelter, insulation and blankets.

WFP is fully funded by voluntary contributions from governments, companies and private individuals. The organisation reports that its regional programme in the Middle East is currently 81 percent underfunded and requires 139 million dollars to help Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq through September 2015.

“Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse, we are forced yet again to make yet more cuts,” WFP Regional Director for the Middle East Muhannad Hadi said in a press release Wednesday. “Refugees were already struggling to cope with what little we could provide.”

The humanitarian funding crisis began in 2013, when the number of Syrian refugees receiving food assistance from WFP dropped by 30 percent.

Food parcels were downsized in October 2014, following a WFP announcement in September that they have no funding available in December 2014 for programmes in Syria.

Ertharin Cousin, executive director of WFP, appealed to the United Nations Security Council and member nations in April 2015 for more funding.

“When we announced the reductions in Jordan our hotlines were overwhelmed. Thousands of appeal calls come in each day. Calls from families that have exhausted their resources and feel abandoned […] by us all,” she said. “One woman told us, ‘I cannot stay […] if I cannot feed my children.'”

A fundraising campaign in December 2014 raised enough funds for WFP to carry on its programmes through December, but in January 2015, WFP cut the amount of money in electronic food cards provided to refugees from 27 dollars to 19 dollars.

Starting this month, the value fell to just 13.5 dollars.

This is not the first time WFP has faced a funding crisis. In 2009, aid operations in Guatemala, Bangladesh and Kenya faced reductions in supply of food rations due to a lack of funding. In 2011, a similar situation occurred in Zimbabwe.

When faced with funding shortfalls, WFP suspends programmes and only provides aid to the most vulnerable groups – pregnant women, children and the elderly.

International efforts to relieve suffering caused by the Syrian crisis culminated in the Jun. 25 Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP) that called for 5.5 billion dollars to fund the needs of host governments, United Nations agencies and NGO aid operations in the area.

According to the Financial Tracking Service (FTS) of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), only 25 percent of the appeal has been met.

“This massive crisis requires far more solidarity and responsibility-sharing from the international community than what we have seen so far,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres in a Jun. 25 WFP press release.

“But instead, we are so dangerously low on funding that we risk not being able to meet even the most basic survival needs of millions of people over the coming six months.”

The United States has contributed over 609 million dollars to the effort, representing 26.4 percent of the total pledged. The United Kingdom follows behind with a contribution of over 344 million dollars.

A WFP interview with Syrian refugees in Lebanon captures the refugees’ desperation:

“Every time we take one step forward, we fall ten steps back. I have given up the hope that we will ever live normally again,” said Fatmeh, a refugee who fled to Lebanon three years ago, in the WFP interview.

“I know the world has forgotten us; we’re too much of a burden. They’ve given up on us too.”

The crisis in Syria began in 2011 after security forces killed several pro-democracy protestors. Unrest followed with demands for President Bashar al-Assad’s resignation, to which he responded with violence.

The situation worsened with the rise of the armed group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in northern and eastern Syria. The country became a battleground between four forces – Assad’s pro-governmental forces, Kurdish fighters, ISIS, and rebel fighters eager to overturn Assad’s regime.

In the midst of the violence, Syrians are faced with a crumbling economy. The UNDP report revealed that four out of every five Syrians lived in poverty in 2014, and almost two-thirds of the population was unable to secure basic food and non-food items necessary for survival.

The death toll in Syria reached 210,000 by the end of 2014, with 840,000 people wounded.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
ROME, May 28 2015 (IPS)

At the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS), heads of government and the international community committed to reducing the number of hungry people in the world by half. Five years later, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) lowered this level of ambition by only seeking to halve the proportion of the hungry.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram. Credit: Abdul Ghani Ismail

The latest State of World Food Insecurity (SOFI) report for 2015 by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme and International Fund for Agricultural Development estimates almost 795 million people—one in nine people worldwide—remain chronically hungry.

The number of undernourished people—those regularly unable to consume enough food for an active and healthy life—in the world has thus only declined by slightly over a fifth from the 1010.6 million estimated for 1991 to 929.6 million in 2001, 820.7 million in 2011 and 794.6 million in 2014.

With the number of chronically hungry people in developing countries declining from 990.7 million in 1991 to 779.9 million in 2014, their share in developing countries has declined by 44.4 per cent, from 23.4 to 12.9 per cent over the 23 years, but still short of the 11.7 per cent target.

Thus, the MDG 1c target of halving the chronically undernourished’s share of the world’s population by the end of 2015 is unlikely to be met at the current rate of progress. However, meeting the target is still possible, with sufficient, immediate, additional effort to accelerate progress, especially in countries which have showed little progress thus far.With high levels of deprivation, unemployment and underemployment likely to prevail in the world in the foreseeable future, poverty and hunger are unlikely to be overcome by 2030 without universally establishing a social protection floor for all.

Progress uneven

Overall progress has been highly uneven. All but 15 million of the world’s hungry live in developing countries. Some countries and regions have seen only slow progress in reducing hunger, while the absolute number of hungry has even increased in several cases.

By the end of 2014, 72 of the 129 developing countries monitored had reached the MDG 1c target — to either reduce the share of hungry people by half, or keep the share of the chronically undernourished under five per cent. Several more are likely to do so by the end of 2015.

Instead of halving the number of hungry in developing regions by 476 million, this number was only reduced by 221 million, just under half the earlier, more ambitious WFS goal. Nevertheless, some 29 countries succeeded in at least halving the number of hungry. This is significant as this shows that achieving and sustaining rapid progress in reducing hunger is feasible.

Marked differences in undernourishment persist across the regions. There have been significant reductions in both the share and number of undernourished in most countries in South-East Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean—where the MDG target of halving the hunger rate has been reached.

While sub-Saharan Africa has the highest share of the chronically hungry, almost one in four, South Asia has the highest number, with over half a billion undernourished. West Asia alone has seen an actual rise in the share of the hungry compared to 1991, while progress in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Oceania has not been sufficient to meet the MDG hunger target by 2015.

Efforts need to be stepped up

Despite the shortfall in achieving the MDG1c target and the failure to get near the WFS goal of halving the number of hungry, world leaders are likely to commit to eliminating hunger and poverty by 2030 when they announce the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the United Nations in September.

To be sure, there is enough food produced to feed everyone in the world. However, hundreds of millions of people do not have the means to access enough food to meet their dietary energy needs, let alone what is needed for diverse diets to avoid ‘hidden hunger’ by meeting their micronutrient requirements.

With high levels of deprivation, unemployment and underemployment likely to prevail in the world in the foreseeable future, poverty and hunger are unlikely to be overcome by 2030 without universally establishing a social protection floor for all. Such efforts will also need to provide the means for sustainable livelihoods and resilience.

The Second International Conference of Nutrition in Rome last November articulated commitments and proposals for accelerated progress to overcome undernutrition. Improvements in nutrition will require sustained and integrated efforts involving complementary policies, including improving health conditions, food systems, social protection, hygiene, water supply and education.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Sixty-five-year-old Rita Rai still has not received emergency relief in the remote village of Mahadevsthan in Kavre district, 100 km south of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Naresh Newar
KAVRE DISTRICT, Nepal, May 5 2015 (IPS)

Just over a week after a dreadful 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked Nepal, displaced families are gradually – but cautiously – resuming their normal lives, though most are still badly shaken by the disaster and the proceeding aftershocks that devastated the country.

However, delivery of humanitarian aid and basic relief supplies remains slow, hindered by the scale of the tragedy. With the annual summer monsoon just around the corner – and heavy rains already lashing some parts of the country – experts say the clock is ticking for effective relief efforts.

“We have stopped crying out of fear because we need to move on now and be brave." -- Sunita Tamang, a teenager from rural Nepal who lost her home and school in the recent quake
As of May 3, the death toll was 7,250 in 30 districts, with half of them in Kathmandu and its neighbouring Sindupalchok district, according to the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS), the largest humanitarian NGO in the country.

A further 14,122 people have been injured.

Over one million families have been displaced in 35 districts, while over 297,000 houses have been completely destroyed.

The United Nations says close to eight million people – over a quarter of Nepal’s population of 27 million – have been impacted by the crisis.

Of these, about 3.5 million are in need of food aid. The World Food Programme (WFP) has issued an urgent appeal for 116.5 million dollars to deliver aid to those most in need – some 1.4 million people – over the next three months.

The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), meanwhile, is worried about the plight of the country’s wheat harvest.

The agency had predicted a yield of 1.8 million tonnes in 2015, but is concerned that this forecast will change, as farmers struggle to access devastated fields and deal with severely damaged drainage systems and irrigation canals.

As the government scrambles to meet the needs of its people, the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced Tuesday that it had begun to airlift 80 metric tonnes of humanitarian aid to the worst-affected areas.

According to a statement on the agency’s website, “[The] aircraft will deliver water, sanitation, and hygiene supplies, such as chlorination material, diarrhoea and cholera kits, as well as water bladders, to provide clean and safe water supplies as fears of an outbreak of waterborne diseases grow. Also on board are health kits and tarpaulins, with many families having fled to open spaces under threat of further aftershocks.”

Families yearn for normalcy

“We have stopped crying out of fear because we need to move on now and be brave,” 13-year-old Sunita Tamang tells IPS, hugging her best friend – 12-year-old Manju Tamang.

The girls hail from the remote Ghumarchowk village of Shankarpur municipality, 80 km from the centre of Kathmandu city. Both of their families lost their homes, cattle and food stocks in the quake.

Their school remains dilapidated and though they are desperate to resume their classes, they must patiently wait out the month-long government-declared closure of schools in case of further natural calamities.

In this village, which is only accessible after a steep, three-hour uphill trek, most of the 500 homes remain unsafe for residence, a major obstacle for families who are getting tired of sleeping under the stars in their potato and squash farms where they are living in makeshift tents, nothing but thin plastic sheets covering their heads.

This village in Nepal’s Kavre district was one of the worst casualties of the Apr. 25 earthquake that devastated great swathes of this South Asia nation. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

The torrential rainfall that is lashing this village makes life in agricultural fields difficult, as the ground becomes too muddy to sleep on.

“I would rather return home and take the risk,” a social worker named Bikash Tamang from the Scout Community Group tells IPS.

The National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET), which aims to create “earthquake safe communities in Nepal by 2020”, has begun a series of assessments of major offices and residential areas across the country.

Chief of communications for the NSET tells IPS in Kathmandu that the organisation is assessing the extent of the damage, to ensure that key service providing agencies within the government, as well as the medical and communications sector, can access those most in need.

But the destruction is so extensive that an exhaustive assessment will take time.

Residents of affected areas are receiving sporadic assistance from local Nepali engineers, who have been volunteering their services to assess damages and safety issues in neighborhoods across the country.

“These engineers are helping us free of charge, and I am so grateful to them,” Shankar Biswakarma, hailing from Bagdol ward in Kathmandu, tells IPS.

But these charitable efforts will not be enough.

Migrant families remain in limbo

The number of residents in Tundikhel, the largest camp area for the displaced in Kathmandu, has halved over the last few days. The remaining families are largely migrant workers, a 25-year-old mother of two children tells IPS.

“Many have left who have relatives and friends to help,” says young Manisha Lama. “Those who come from outside Kathmandu are the ones left here in the camps.”

Her home is in the remote village of Deupur in Kavre district, which is among the most affected districts, nearly 100 km south of the capital.

Kavre also has a record number of destroyed homes – some 30,000 lost to the quake, according to NRCS records.

“The needs of the most affected families are crucial and the response is becoming a huge challenge,” NRCS Chief of Communications Dibya Paudel tells IPS.

He explains that affected people are growing extremely frustrated at the snail’s pace of the emergency response, adding that the government and its relevant agencies are inundated by requests, and under intense pressure to respond to the specific humanitarian needs of million of affected people.

As of May 2, the combined total pledged by the international community to the relief effort stood at 68 million dollars, far short of the required 415 million dollars needed for full recovery, according to estimates prepared by the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

To make matters worse, aid agencies are reporting incidents of looting of relief goods before they reach their specified destination; those on the ground say families are getting too desperate to wait for supplies to reach them through formal channels.

“We’re still waiting for relief but I heard the government and agencies are now scared to come because of the incidents of looting,” Sachen Lama, a resident of the affected village of Bajrayogini, 10 km from Kathmandu, tells IPS.

He and his fellow villagers have been asking the community to stay calm when the relief arrives, and let the aid workers do their job so that there is no obstruction in the distribution process.

“But there was looting two days ago by some local people as they were desperate, [so our] relief supplies never arrived here,” Lama says.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says boosting women’s leadership in disaster risk reduction would be a key element of the country’s new programme of international support. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/IPS

By Jamshed Baruah and Katsuhiro Asagiri
SENDAI, Japan, Mar 16 2015 (IPS)

Women play a critical role in reducing disaster risk and planning and decision-making during and after disasters strike, according to senior United Nations, government and civil society representatives.

In fact, efforts at reducing risks can never be fully effective or sustainable if the needs and voices of women are ignored, they agreed.WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin underscored that the “global reset” that began on Mar. 14 in Sendai must include steps to place women at the centre of disaster risk reduction efforts.

Even at risk of their own health and well-being, women are most heavily impacted but often overcome immense obstacles to lead response efforts and provide care and support to those hit hard by disasters, said participants in a high-level multi-stakeholder Partnership Dialogue during the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in Sendai, Japan, from Mar. 14 to 18.

Participants in the conference’s first of several intergovernmental high-level partnership dialogues, on ‘Mobilizing Women’s Leadership in Disaster Risk Reduction’, included the heads of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

In an interview with IPS, UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin said the Sendai Conference offers “a new opportunity for the world to galvanise around a common disaster risk reduction agenda and commit to collective actions that put women at its centre”.

The fact that serious gaps remain in the area is not for lack of guidance and tools on relevant gender-based approaches and best practices. What is needed is requisite political will to make sure that women’s voices were enhanced and participation ensured. All such efforts must bolster women’s rights, included sexual and reproductive health rights, he said.

Osotimehin pleaded for key actions at all levels, and stressed that dedicated resources are lacking and as such, money must be devoted to disaster risk reduction and women must be empowered to play a real role in that area.

He pointed out that sustained and sustainable disaster risk reduction requires an accountability framework with indicators and targets to measure progress and ensure that national and local actors move towards implementation.

A physician and public health expert, before Osotimehin became UNFPA chief in January 2011 in the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, he was Director-General of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Control of AIDS, which coordinates HIV and AIDS work in a country of about 180 million people.

WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin underscored that the “global reset” that began on Mar. 14 in Sendai must include steps to place women at the centre of disaster risk reduction efforts.

As several other speakers and heads of governments also emphasised in several other fora, Cousin said the WCDRR is the first of a crucial series of U.N.-backed conferences and meetings set for 2015 respectively on development financing, sustainable development and climate change, all aimed at ensuring a safer and more prosperous world for all.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe echoed similar sentiments in a keynote address. He said that Japan had long understood the importance of enhancing the voice, visibility and participation of women.

For example, if a disaster struck during the middle of the day, most of the people at home would be women so their perspective is essential “absolutely essential for restoring devastated”.

“’No matter how much the ground shakes, we will remain calm in our hearts,’” said Prime Minister Abe, quoting the powerful words of women in one of the districts he had visited in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and pledging Japan’s ongoing strong commitment to ensuring all women played a greater role in disaster risk reduction.

Abe announced that boosting women’s leadership in disaster risk reduction would be a key element of the country’s new programme of international support.

He said: “Today I announced Japan’s new cooperation initiative for disaster risk reduction. Under this initiative, over the next four years, Japan will train 40,000 officials and people in local regions around the world as leaders who will play key roles in disaster risk reduction and reconstruction.

“One of the major projects that will be undertaken through this initiative is the launch of the Training to Promote Leadership by Women in Disaster Risk Reduction. Furthermore, at the World Assembly for Women in Tokyo to be held this summer, one of the themes will be ‘Women and Disaster Risk Reduction’.”

Abe said, “We are launching concrete projects in nations around the world” and would build on existing efforts to promote women’s leadership in disaster risk reduction in such partner countries as Fiji, Solomon Islands, and other Pacific island nations.

“We have dispatched experts in the field of community disaster risk reduction to conduct training focusing on women over a three-year period … Now these women have become leaders and are carrying on their own activities to spread knowledge about disaster risk reduction to other women in their communities,” he said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Computer technician Gladys Pavón with her son Irving in Bayamo, in the eastern Cuban province of Granma. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños IPS

By Ivet González
BAYAMO, Cuba, Jan 14 2015 (IPS)

Cuba has met the United Nations goal of reducing hunger. But anemia caused by malnutrition is still a problem among infants, small children and pregnant women in this Caribbean island nation, which has been in the grip of an economic crisis for over two decades.

“Meat is the hardest thing to get,” said Gladys Pavón from the city of Bayamo, 730 km east of Havana. “The fruit and vegetables that we buy for the children are also difficult to get. We buy milk at the store [through the ration card system],” the 32-year-old mother of two small boys told IPS.

Pavón, a computer technician, is introducing new foods into the diet of nine-month-old Irving. “My little one is now eating fruit, tubers, pasta and all kinds of meat. I try to give him a balanced diet, like I do with two-year-old Javier Alejandro,” she said.

“My kids have never suffered from anemia,” the young mother said proudly, holding the chunky Irving, who is free of an ailment that still affects vulnerable parts of the population in the east – Cuba’s poorest region – despite the National Plan for the Prevention and Control of Anemia and constant support from the international community to eradicate the problem.

“Nutritional deficiency anemia is among the main nutritional problems in the province of Granma [whose capital is Bayamo], as it is in the rest of eastern Cuba,” Dr. Margarita Cruz, who heads the local Food and Nutrition Monitoring System, told IPS.

“The main cause is iron deficiency in the diet,” Cruz said. “Children and pregnant women don’t consume the iron their bodies need.”

“There are problems with availability of and access to an adequate diet, but there are also bad nutritional habits, including a taste for junk food, which has begun to have a negative impact,” she said.

There are an estimated two billion people worldwide with micronutrient deficiencies, which undermine a healthy, productive life, according to the first ever Global Nutrition Report, published in November 2014 by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).“Nutritional deficiency anemia is among the main nutritional problems in the province of Granma, as it is in the rest of eastern Cuba.” -- Dr. Margarita Cruz

And under-nutrition kills nearly 1.5 million women and children a year around the world.

In Cuba, which has met the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of people who live in hunger, from 1990 levels, less than five percent of the population of 11.2 million is undernourished.

Every inhabitant receives a set quota of food purchased at subsidised prices through the “libreta” or ration book. The system is widely criticised, but it is essential for lower-income segments of the population. And pregnant women and children up to the age of 13 receive a special diet with extra supplies of meat, fortified milk, fruit compote and yoghurt.

But to put food on the table all month long, families have no choice but to pay the high prices charged for food in the farmers’ markets, state-run stores that only accept hard currency, and the black market, which survives despite police raids and prison sentences of up to three years for contraband.

Statistics from the state-run Centre of Studies on the Cuban Economy show that food absorbs between 59 and 75 percent of the family budget, in a country where the state, by far the largest employer, pays an average salary of 19 dollars a month.

Eastern Cuba, which includes five provinces – Las Tunas, Granma, Holguín, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo – has the worst development indicators in the country.

According to the latest population and housing census, from 2012, many more people leave the eastern provinces than arrive. In the remaining 10 provinces, more than 75 percent of outsiders have traditionally been from the east.

Although anemia is still a health problem, the situation has improved in recent years.

A study carried out in eastern Cuba from 2005 to 2011 found that the prevalence of anemia among children under five fell from 31.8 to 26 percent. The highest rates were found among babies and toddlers between six and 23 months of age, according to an article published in 2014 in the Cuban magazine MEDICC Review.

In Granma, which has 830,600 inhabitants, the prevalence of anemia among children under five has dropped below 25 percent and among pregnant women to under 20 percent, said Cruz, one of the authors of the article in MEDICC Review.

“An effort has been made, which is why we have seen results,” she said. “People are eating more vegetables and have learned how to combine certain foods to maximise the nutrients.”

The World Food Programme (WFP) financed two major projects, consecutively, from 2002 to 2014 in the five eastern provinces, in support of the Public Health Ministry’s National Plan for the Prevention and Control of Anemia.

The projects, carried out in conjunction with local institutions, included communicational and educational strategies targeting families; the setting up of anemia monitoring systems in the public health sector; the free distribution of cereals fortified with micronutrients; and measures to boost local production of the cereals.

Cuba and the WFP launched a new programme this month. It will run through 2018, and puts a priority on nutritional monitoring and aid for agriculture in Cuba, in line with the Raúl Castro government’s emphasis on agriculture and empowerment at a local level to reduce the country’s food imports, which total two billion dollars a year.

Using rice grown in Cuba, the state-run Dairy Products Company of Bayamo began this month to produce fortified rice, Nutriarroz. Rice is the most widely consumed cereal in this country.

“The product has been accepted well in the trials that have been carried out,” said Rauel Medina, director of the factory.

The company, the largest of its kind in the country, is to deliver 1,200 tons a year for free distribution among small children and pregnant women in the eastern provinces that still have a high prevalence of anemia, as part of the cooperation between the WFP and Cuba.

“This problem must be detected among women of childbearing age,” said Dr. Mariela Velis, head of the Maternal and Child Health Programme in Granma. “An anemic mother can have a child with the same problem, and a cycle is created.”

For that reason, hemoglobin screening for anemia is carried out among women in the province, starting in adolescence, she explained.

Edited by Verónica Firme/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Faced with starvation, hordes of jobless Zimbabweans in towns and cities here have turned to vending on streets pavements to put food on their tables. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Dec 9 2014 (IPS)

As unemployment deepens across this Southern African nation and as the country battles to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ahead of the December 2015 deadline, thousands of urban Zimbabweans here are facing starvation.

The MDGs are eight goals agreed to by all U.N. member states and all leading international development institutions to be achieved by the target date of 2015. These goals range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education.

Zimbabwe has a total population of just over 13 million people, according to the 2012 National Census – of these, 67 percent now live in rural areas while 33 percent live in urban areas.

According to the Poverty, Income, Consumption and Expenditure Survey report for 2011-2012 from the Zimbabwe Statistical Agency (ZIMSTAT), 30.4 percent of rural people in Zimbabwe are “extremely poor” – and are also people facing starvation – compared with 5.6 percent in urban areas.“The current inability of the economy to address people’s basic needs is leading to hunger in most urban households, with almost none of urban residents in Zimbabwe being able to afford three meals a day nowadays” – Philip Bohwasi, chairperson of Zimbabwe’s Council of Social Workers

Social workers find the stay of urban dwellers in Zimbabwe’s cities justifiable, but ridden with hardships.

“Remaining in towns and cities for many here is better than living in the countryside as every slightest job opportunity often starts in urban areas in spite of the expensive living conditions in towns and cities,” independent social worker Tracey Ngirazi told IPS.

According to Philip Bohwasi, chairperson of Zimbabwe’s Council of Social Workers, urban starvation is being caused by loss of jobs – the World Food Programme (WFP) estimates unemployment in Zimbabwe to be at 60 percent of the country’s total population.

“The current inability of the economy to address people’s basic needs is leading to hunger in most urban households, with almost none of urban residents in Zimbabwe affording three meals a day nowadays,” Bohwasi told IPS.

True to Bohwasi’s words, for many Zimbabwean urban residents like unemployed 39-year-old qualified accountant Josphat Madyira from the Zimbabwean capital Harare, starvation has become order of the day.

“Food stores are filled to the brim with groceries, but most of us here are jobless and therefore have no money to consistently buy very basic foodstuffs, resulting in us having mostly one meal per day,” Madyira told IPS.

Madyira lost his job at a local shoe manufacturing company after it shut down operations owing to the country’s deepening liquidity crunch, thanks to a failing economy here that has rendered millions of people jobless.

Asked how city dwellers like him are surviving, Madyira said: “People who are jobless like me have resorted to vending on streets pavements, selling anything we can lay our hands on as we battle to put food on our tables.”

The donor community, which often extends food aid to impoverished rural households, has rarely done the same in towns and cities here despite hunger now taking its toll on the urban population, according to civil society activists.

“Whether in cities or remote areas, hunger in Zimbabwe is equally ravaging ordinary people and most of the donor community has for long directed food aid to the countryside, rarely paying attention to towns and cities, which are also now succumbing to famine,” Catherine Mukwapati, director of the Youth Dialogue Action Network civil society organisation, told IPS.

Apparently failing to combat hunger in line with the MDGs, over the years Zimbabwe has not made great strides in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger due to the economic decline that has persisted since 2000.

As a result, earlier this year, the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in partnership with the Zimbabwean government, extended its monthly cash pay-out scheme to urban areas.

Under this scheme, which started at the peak of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis in 2008, families living on less than 1.25 dollars a day receive a monthly pay-out of between 10 and 20 dollars, depending on the number of family members.

Economists and development experts here say that achieving the MDGs without food on people’s tables, especially in cities whose inhabitants are fast falling prey to growing hunger, is going to be a nightmare, if not highly impossible for Zimbabwe.

“Be it in cities or rural areas, Zimbabwe still has a lot of people living on less than 1.25 dollars a day, which is the global index measure of extreme poverty, a clear indication that as a country we are far from successfully combating hunger and poverty in line with the U.N. MDGs whose global deadline for world countries to achieve is next year,” independent development expert Obvious Sibanda told IPS.

According to the 2013 Human Development Index of the U.N. Development Programmer (UNDP), Zimbabwe is a low-income, food-deficit country, ranked 156 out of 187 countries globally and UNDP says that currently 72 percent of Zimbabweans live below the national poverty line.

Although hunger is now hammering people in both urban and rural areas, government sources also recognise that the pinch is being felt more by urban dwellers.

“The decline in formal employment, mostly in towns and cities, with many workers engaged in poorly remunerated informal jobs, has a direct bearing on both poverty and hunger, which is on a sharp rise in urban areas,” a top government economist, who declined to be named, admitted to IPS.

For the many hunger-stricken Madyiras in Zimbabwe’s towns and cities, meeting the MDGS by the end of next year matters little.

“Defeating starvation is far from me without decent and stable employment and whether or not my country fulfils the MDGs, it may be of no immediate result to many people like me,” Madyira told IPS.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Sri Lanka is gripped by election fever, but the impoverished majority fears that the presidential race will not ease their financial hardships. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, Nov 28 2014 (IPS)

Priyantha Wakvitta is used to seeing his adopted city, Colombo, transform into a landscape of bright sparkling lights and window dressing towards the end of the year.

This year, he says, he is having a double dose of visual stimulation, with publicity materials for the January Presidential Election competing with Christmas décor at every turn.

Though the presidential race could shape up to be a close one, there is no competition over which event will take Colombo by storm: political propaganda is drowning out the festive mood on every street corner.

“[Politicians] are spending millions just to get their faces all over the city, while I am struggling to keep my family fed and my children in school." -- Priyantha Wakvitta, a 50-year-old bread seller in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo
Four days after the elections were announced on Nov. 21, at least 1,800 cutouts of the incumbent president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had been deployed within the limits of the Colombo Municipality, according to national election monitors with the Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE).

Head of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), Rajapaksa has enjoyed massive support around the country for his role in decimating the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, thus bringing an end to nearly three decades of civil war in 2009.

But as the post-war years revealed themselves as a time of hardship of a very different nature – economic rather than political – his popularity has waned.

His main challenger in the presidential race, Maithripala Sirisena, was until recently the general secretary of Rajapaksa’s own political party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).

Last week Sirisena stepped out of government and into the role of Rajapaksa’s contender as the common opposition candidate.

The election is turning out to be a keen contest; already there have been eight defections from the ruling coalition’s United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), while the powerful nationalist party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya, once the government’s staunch ally, has declared its opposition to the Rajapaksas.

The poster campaign around the capital city and throughout the country is a bid to win hearts and minds, but the beaming cutouts of politicians have left people like Wakvitta at best annoyed, at worst disgusted.

“They are spending millions just to get their faces all over the city, while I am struggling to keep my family fed and my children in school,” said the 50-year-old father of two, originally from the southern district of Galle, but self employed in the capital for the last decade.

Wakvitta is an enterprising man. He runs his own small bakery in a Colombo suburb and makes a living by distributing bread to households. He used to make a profit of around 30,000 rupees, or roughly 250 dollars, a month. But that figure has been going down steadily over the last year.

He tried to branch out to a small vegetable business earlier this year, but burnt his hands and lost his 100,000-rupee investment, the equivalent of about 700 dollars, no small sum in a country where the average annual income is about 550,000 rupees or 4,100 dollars.

“People don’t have money, they are finding it hard to make ends meet,” Wakvitta said.

Though Sri Lanka has maintained an impressive economic growth rate of 7.5 percent and the Rajapaksa government has a string of high-profile infrastructure projects under its belt, including a new seaport and airport, low-income earners say they are struggling to survive.

The national poverty rate is 6.7 percent but most rural areas report higher figures. In Wakvitta’s native Galle District it is 9.9 percent, in the south-central district of Moneragala it is 20.8 percent and in Rathnapura, capital of the southwestern Sabaragamuwa Province, it is 10.4 percent, according to government data.

The problems the poor face are multi-faceted; while wages have remained static, basic commodities have quietly increased in price. Most significant among them has been the upward trend in the cost of rice, a dietary staple here.

Fueled by an 11-month drought that has caused a loss of almost a third of the planted area, the 2014 rice harvest is expected to be at least 20 percent less than last year’s four million metric tons, and a six-year low.

Rice prices have risen 33 percent according to the World Food Programme (WFP), and vegetable and fish prices have also shown periodic upward movement primarily due to inclement weather.

Token gestures or sound economic policies?

Cognizant of the hardships faced by the Sri Lankan masses, political parties across the spectrum frequently use the election run-up to promise the earth to the average voter – from subsidies to assistance packages – pledging to make life easier for those who form the majority of the electorate.

But Ajith Dissanayake, who is from the southern Galle District and makes a living from paddy cultivation, says that token gestures will not do.

“Election handouts will not work, there needs to be some kind of concerted plan to help the poor,” he told IPS.

In the northern regions of the country, where the population is still trying to shake off the residual nightmare of nearly 30 years of civil war, the situation is even worse.

The conflict ended in May 2009, and since then the government has injected over three billion dollars into the reconstruction effort in the Northern Province, largely for major infrastructure projects.

But the region is mired in abject poverty. The Mullaithivu District, which witnessed the last bloody battles in the protracted conflict between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE over five years ago, is the poorest in the nation, with a poverty ratio of 28.3 percent.

The adjoining Kilinochchi District has a recorded poverty headcount of 12.7 percent.

“It is very difficult, it is like we are fighting another conflict: this time with poverty,” said Thiyagarasa Chandirakumar, a 38-year-old disabled father of two from Oddusuddan, a small village located deep inside Mullaithivu.

He told IPS that despite new electrification programmes, many in his village are still waiting for the supply to light up their homes.

“Most of us don’t have the money to get new connections, we don’t even have money sometimes to take a bus,” explained Chandirakumar, who is confined to a wheelchair due to a wartime injury.

Both Wakvitta and Chandirakumar have simple requests from the candidates standing for the highest office in the country: “Make sure our lives are better off than they were before,” Wakvitta said.

That request, however, is unlikely to be realised any time soon. News of the snap election, coupled with the surprise announcement this past week of a common opposition candidate, has thrown the country into a period of uncertainly, at least in the short term.

Two days after elections were announced, the Colombo Stock Market took a nose-dive, with the All Share Price Index falling by 2.3 percent on Monday, Nov. 24 – the worst slide since August 2013.

Analysts say that investors are likely to hold off for the time being, with long-term policy measures also taking a back seat to what promises to be a fierce contest.

“Investors – whether local or foreign – like certainty,” Anushka Wijesinha, an economist with the national think-tank the Institute for Policy Studies, told IPS.

“Policy and political certainty have been established fairly well over the last few years and any disruption to this would no doubt be viewed negatively by investors. So, the recent political developments will be watched closely,” he added.

Wijesinha also said that elections should be more about long term policies than about handouts aimed at wining votes.

“This calls for a shift from the heavy focus on subsidies, welfare payments, and other generous transfers for rural populations – which may help alleviate poverty in the short term – to improving skills, productivity and access to new economic opportunities, which help raise living standards on a more sustained basis,” he said.

Despite the end of the war ushering in renewed hopes of development, income disparities have stubbornly persisted. According to government data, the country’s richest 20 percent still enjoy close to half of the nation’s income, while the poorest 20 percent only share five percent of national wealth among them.

For those like Wakvitta and Chandirakumar, the future looks bleak, with or without elections. Both know for sure that in the short term nothing much will change for the better.

“Hopefully whoever becomes the next president will take the bold steps needed to help people like me,” Wakvitta said as he sped away on his motorbike, looking for his next customer.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Higala Mohammed (in green) prepares land for drip irrigation in the Dadaab refugee complex. Photo: UN Women/Tabitha Icuga

By UN Women
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 12 2014 (IPS)

In the world’s largest refugee complex – the sprawling Dadaab settlement in Kenya’s North Eastern Province – women listen attentively during a business management workshop held at a hospital in one of its newest camps, Ifo 2.

Leila Abdulilahi, a 25-year-old Somali refugee and mother, has brought her five-month-old along, while her four other children wait at home. She asks question after question, eager to learn more. Leila has lived in the camp for the past three years and has no source of income, so her family depends on the rations distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP).

Unlike others, who have called Dadaab home since 1991, at the start of the civil war in Somalia, Leila is a ‘new arrival’ – a term used for those who came after the 2011 drought and more recent military intervention against extremist groups.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, as of September 2014 there were 341,359 registered refugees in Dadaab — the world’s largest refugee camp — half of whom are women.

"The lack of livelihood opportunities is a contributing factor to sexual and gender-based violence at the camp." -- Idil Absiye, Peace and Security Specialist with UN Women Kenya
“We are afraid to go fetch firewood in the forest. Bandits also attack us in our own homesteads and rape us,” says Leila. “If I had the money I would just buy firewood and I wouldn’t have to go or send my daughter to the forest.”

According to the Kenya Red Cross Society, rape rates are highest in Ifo 2, which sprawls across 10 square km and is located approximately 100 kilometres from the Kenya-Somalia border. Created in 2011, Ifo 2 is the newest camp in Dadaab and many safety measures are yet to be put in place, such as lighting, fencing, guards and other community protection mechanisms for the overcrowding.

Through its Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action Programme, UN Women has been supporting and working closely with the Kenya Red Cross Society to implement a livelihood project in Ifo 2.

“The lack of livelihood opportunities is a contributing factor to sexual and gender-based violence at the camp,” says Idil Absiye, Peace and Security Specialist with UN Women Kenya. She says providing women with the opportunity to earn a living is an important step that will help them fend for themselves in the camp and when they go back home.

The initiative also provides counseling services to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, and family mediation services at the Ifo 2 District hospital, with support from UN Women. Initial results include more sexual and gender-based violence cases now being reported.

According to Counsellor Gertrude Lebu, the Gender-Based Violence Centre now receives up to 15 cases on an average day. Men have also been seeking family mediation with their wives.

Raking up resilience

"The lack of livelihood opportunities is a contributing factor to sexual and gender-based violence at the camp." -- Idil Absiye, Peace and Security Specialist with UN Women Kenya
Beneath the scalding sun that has parched the landscape of north-eastern Kenya, 10 women are digging the dry, dusty land using rakes and sticks. When dust storms come, they use their scarves to shield their eyes. They hardly notice the harsh conditions as they dig, their focus on three months later when they will be harvesting their horticultural produce.

Income-generating activities in Dadaab refugee camps are rare, and agriculture even more so, because of harsh weather conditions and extreme poverty. Women sometimes sell a portion of their food aid (which consists of maize, wheat, beans, soya, pulses and cooking oil) in order to be able to purchase fruit and vegetables, school supplies and pay for their children’s school fees.

Providing for their families means everything for mothers like Leila. It means not having to fight with their husbands for food, school fees or other basic needs, if they can provide for themselves and their families.

Ephraim Karanja, the Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Programme Coordinator with the Kenya Red Cross, says six greenhouses have been bought, and the women are busy preparing the land to plant and sow crops. They will sell their produce at a new market being built in Dadaab as part of the project, which will reduce the safety risks of travelling to the markets in towns nearby.

“I want to open a shop. With the profit I make, I will buy clothes, vegetables and fruits for my children,” says Leila.

She and 300 other vulnerable women will be trained in business management and horticulture agriculture and supported to start a business that will help sustain their families.

Higala Mohammed, a farmer from Somalia, is optimistic about the group’s labour. Inspired, she has also set up a small vegetable garden next to her makeshift tent where she grows barere, a traditional Somalian vegetable. “We need all the nutrients we can get here,” she adds.

Leila’s pathway to independence makes her hopeful. “I want to work and support my family, even when I return home someday — and I will open a bigger shop,” she says.

This article is published under an agreement with UN Women. For more information visit the Beijing+20 campaign website. 

A young girl digs a 'zai pit' in order to improve the productivity of her family farm in Kitui County, eastern Kenya. Credit: Xavi Fernández de Castro/IPS

By Xavi Fernández de Castro
NAIROBI, Oct 15 2014 (IPS)

For the past 40 years Josephine Kakiyi, 55, has been cultivating maize, beans and vegetables on her small plot of land in the remote area of Kwa Vonza, in Kitui County, eastern Kenya.

Even though this has always been a hot and semi-arid region, over the last 15 years Kakiyi has noticed that the rainfall has reduced and become increasingly unpredictable.

She doesn’t exactly know why this is happening. The only thing she knows for sure is that “now it’s harder to say when it will rain.”

But farmers all over Kenya, and in most African countries, are facing similar problems.

Experts from around the world are certain that climate change is playing a major role in the difficulties Kakiyi and hundreds of thousands of other farmers are experiencing on the continent.

According to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “there is strong consensus that climate change will negatively impact food security in Africa.”

The report also states that “floods, drought, shifts in the timing and amount of rainfall, and high temperatures associated with climate change could directly affect crop and livestock productivity.”

All of these phenomena, when combined, may easily create numerous crises on a continent that is expected to double its population to 2.4 billion by 2050.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World report, published this year by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the U.N. (FAO) and  International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), estimates that there is around 227 million undernourished people in Africa — a fifth of the continent’s’ population.

Even so, the prevalence of undernourishment in Africa has declined from 27.7 percent in 1990 to 20.5 percent currently.

In Kenya, food security is a great concern for at least 10.8 million people, although the prevalence has also shrunk from 33 percent to 24.3 percent over the last 25 years.

But what experts still don’t agree on is the extent to which climate change is affecting food security.

“Climate change is an exacerbating driver, not the primary cause, of food insecurity and hunger,” Randall Purcell, a senior advisor to the Recovery Unit of WFP in Kenya, tells IPS.

“The weather has always been hot and dry in large parts of Kenya, which makes the country more prone to droughts.”

However, the latest scientific data show that over the last 15 years “droughts [are] coming sooner and in a more unpredictable way,” Purcell adds. “Before, one could predict that a severe drought [would occur] every five to seven years, now it’s every three years.”

And the same applies to rainfall.

The IPCC has forecast a slight increase of rainfall in East Africa, but it also expects it to be more erratic and sporadic.

So it’s getting harder to tell when, where, and how much it will rain, as farmers like Kakiyi have noticed.

Luigi Luminari, a technical advisor to the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), a parastatal organisation set up in 2011 to coordinate a more effective response to periodic drought episodes and dry spells in Kenya, is convinced that “climate change is affecting weather patterns, but we still need more evidence.”

A representative of FAO in Kenya, Luca Alinovi, also prefers to be cautious and explains to IPS the difficulties scientists encounter when linking climate change to its consequences.

“In most African countries the amount of solid data on weather is very [limited], so it’s very difficult to say for sure if a specific event entails a structural change or it’s only a cycle that repeats itself every few decades. Furthermore, a lot of measurements are not done with ground stations but with estimates,” Alinovi says.

Regardless of what the data may prove, the fact is that Kenya has suffered three major droughts since 2001 and the Kenyan government, in collaboration with the World Bank, the European Union and relevant stakeholders, is trying to implement a new approach to address the situation.

“The NDMA has established an early warning system at a county level to facilitate the collection of environmental and socioeconomic data so we can activate our contingency plans before the worst effects of drought have even appeared,” Luminari explains.

But detection is only half of the solution. The other half is based on prevention. “Climate change can also be an opportunity and not only a threat,” Alinovi asserts.

“Innovative agriculture offers a lot of solutions to farmers. For example, if rainfall is more erratic, you can find ways to harvest the water and use it when it suits you better; or as maize is not drought tolerant you can start planting other heat-resistant crops like sorghum or millet, which can provide good revenue as well.”

On her plot of roughly 0.3 hectares, Kakiyi has started using zai pits, an agricultural technique exported from West Africa that consists of digging holes that are two feet by two feet. In the pits she puts a mixture of soil and manure to help improve the infiltration of the run-off water from rainy seasons.

Using this technique, which is labour-intensive but cheap, Kakiyi has been able to increase the productivity of her plot by 10 times.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

This is part of a series sponsored by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN).

A tractor moves along the side of the dried-out Elephant Pass causeway in the northern Kilinochchi District. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, Oct 7 2014 (IPS)

Gazing out over the parched earth of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, one might think these farmlands have not seen water in years. In fact, this is not too far from the truth.

The World Food Programme (WFP) last month allocated 2.5 million dollars to assist hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans in the throes of an 11-month drought that has shown no signs of abating.

The WFP said on Sep. 1 that 2.3 million dollars worth of supplies, including rations of the national staple rice, would be provided to the drought victims. The assistance scheme will also provide 277,000 dollars in cash grants to some families.

The drought has so far impacted over 1.6 million people, of whom at least 190,000 are in need of urgent food assistance, while there are concerns about the food security of an additional 700,000.

Over half of those impacted by the drought are from the northern and eastern provinces of the country, two of the poorest in the nation.

While the situation calls for immediate assistance, the WFP also warned that the affected would need long-term help to adapt to the impacts of changing climate patterns.

The World Bank estimates that the annual risk to Sri Lanka posed by climate-related disasters stands at some 380 million dollars. The worst disaster to date, a severe flood in 2010 and 2011, caused damages to the tune of 50 billion dollars.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

A man walks through agricultural land in the village of Mirusuvil, in Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna District. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, Oct 3 2014 (IPS)

Gazing out over the parched earth of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, one might think these farmlands have not seen water in years. In fact, this is not too far from the truth.

The World Food Programme (WFP) last month allocated 2.5 million dollars to assist hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans in the throes of an 11-month drought that has shown no signs of abating.

A woman stands in front of her parched paddy land in the eastern Batticaloa District, one of Sri Lanka’s largest paddy-producing regions, that has been hit by the 11-month-long drought. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

A man stands in the middle of parched paddy land in the northern Kilinochchi District. Sri Lanka’s staple rice harvest is expected to record a loss of 17 percent from around four million metric tonnes in 2013. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

The WFP said on Sep. 1 that 2.3 million dollars worth of supplies, including rice rations, would be provided to the drought victims. The assistance scheme will also provide 277,000 dollars in cash grants to needy families.

A woman covers her head with a cloth to escape the extreme heat in Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna District where daytime temperatures can reach 40 degrees Celsius. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

A woman carries firewood in the drought-impacted Pillumalai area of the eastern Batticaloa District. Residents of this region are staring a water crisis in the face, as the main reservoir, the Vakaneri Tank, is almost completely dried up. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

The drought has so far impacted over 1.6 million people, of whom at least 190,000 are in need of urgent food assistance, while there are concerns about the food security of an additional 700,000.

A parched tank bed in the southeastern Moneragala District, where farmers say the absence of rain since late 2013 has completely destroyed their agricultural lands. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

A young girl drinks water out of a bottle in Sri Lanka’s eastern Batticaloa District, where over 220,000 persons have been affected by the drought. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

Over half of those impacted by the drought are from the northern and eastern provinces of the country, two of the poorest in the nation.

A tractor moves along the side of the dried-out Elephant Pass causeway in the northern Kilinochchi District. Officials told IPS the district was in need of at least nine million rupees (69,000 dollars) per week for drought relief. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

A man uses water from an industrial-grade pump in the Karadiyanaru area of the eastern Batticaloa District. Experts warn that the rampant use of powerful water-pumps in this arid region is putting undue stress on the water table. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

While the situation calls for immediate assistance, the WFP also warned that the affected would need long-term help to adapt to the impacts of changing climate patterns.

A woman tries to salvage whatever is left of her green gram crop before the lack of water destroys the entire plot in the eastern Pillumalai area of the Batticaloa District. According to government estimates, Sri Lanka’s agricultural output is likely to fall by at least 10 percent this year due to the drought. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

The World Bank estimates that the annual risk to Sri Lanka posed by climate-related disasters stands at some 380 million dollars. The worst disaster to date, a severe flood in 2010 and 2011, caused damages to the tune of 50 billion dollars.

Since Aug. 3, there has been a massive dislocation of some 200,000 people from Iraq, resulting in more than 1.2 million displaced. Credit: Mustafa Khayat/CC-BY-ND-2.0

By Bill Miller
NEW YORK, Sep 4 2014 (IPS)

The catastrophic events in Iraq that are unfolding daily are more significant than at any point in recent memory.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which is now calling itself the Islamic State (IS), steamrolled out of Syria into Iraq and appeared to be unstoppable in its march to Baghdad. The Iraqi military, which was far larger and better armed, was either unable or unwilling to confront this ragtag, but determined, force of about 1,000 fighters.

Simultaneously, the world was riveted on the minority Yazidi community that had to escape to Mount Sinjar to avoid certain annihilation.

What made the situation even more dangerous was that Mount Sinjar is a rocky, barren hilltop about 67 miles long and six miles wide, protruding like a camel’s back with a daytime high temperature of 110 degrees, as Kieran Dwyer, communications chief for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, recently reported from Erbil.

Dwyer also shared other staggering statistics:

— Since Aug. 3, there has been a massive dislocation of 200,000 people, as armed groups have ramped up their violence, and there are more than 1.2 million displaced people.

— The U.N. High Commission for Refugees is providing protection and assisting local authorities with shelter, including mattresses and blankets.

— The U.N. World Food Programme set up four communal kitchens in that Governorate and has provided two million meals in the past two weeks.

— The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has provided drinking water and rehydration salts to help prevent or treat diarrhea, as well as provisions of high-energy biscuits for 34,000 children under the age of five in the past week.

— The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) is supporting over 1,300 pregnant women with hygiene supplies and helping local authorities with medical supplies to support 150,000 people.

While returning from South Korea, Pope Francis sanctioned intervening in Iraq to stop Islamist militants from persecuting not only Christian, but also all religious minority groups.

This is a dramatic turnaround, given that the Vatican normally eschews the use of force. His caveat was that the international community must discuss a strategy, possibly at the U.N., so that this would not be perceived as ‘a true war of conquest.’

Shortly thereafter, French President Francois Hollande called for an international conference to discuss ways of confronting the Islamic State insurgents who have seized control of territory in Iraq and Syria.

Both suggestions tie directly into U.S. President Barack Obama’s intention to preside over a meeting of the United Nations Security Council during his attendance at the world body’s annual General Assembly meeting in mid-September.

Specifically, Obama’s agenda will focus upon counterterrorism and the threat of foreign fighters traveling to conflict zones and joining terrorist organisations.

Additionally, all major players in the region, even ones that have had a traditional animosity to one another such as Iran vs. Saudi Arabia and the U.S., must be at the table.

It is critical to remember that a major reason for the disasters occurring in many areas of the Middle East can be traced directly back to the misguided and widely-viewed illegal invasion of Iraq by former President George W. Bush in March of 2003.

Allegedly, the U.S. went to Iraq to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which did not exist.

When the bogus WMD argument collapsed, the rationale quickly moved to regime change and then to establishing democracy in the Arab world.

The real reasons were to control the oil fields and re-do that area so it could be manipulated by Western interests.

In reality, the legacy of the biggest U.S. foreign blunder in history left Iran as the powerhouse in the region, converted Iraq into a powder keg for conflict among the Sunnis and Shias, got 200,000 Iraqis and over 4,000 U.S. military personnel killed, and gave the American taxpayer a bill for two trillion dollars, which is a figure that will continue to rise because of the thousands of troops that will need medical and psychological assistance, as well as Iraq requesting financial, military and technical assistance in the future.

Tragically, some media outlets, such as Fox News and many right-wing talk radio stations, are putting the same purveyors of misinformation and disinformation – such as former Vice-President Dick Cheney, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer, Senator John McCain and Bill Kristol – back on the air to re-write history on how the Iraq War was really a glowing success.

In a democracy it is critical to have a cross-section of ideas and stimulating debate on Iraq and other issues, but it is questionable and foolish to heed the advice of such a devious and counterproductive group that adheres to the nonsensical tenets that if only the U.S. had stayed longer, left more troops or invested more blood and treasure in that region, there would have been a positive outcome.

They refuse to recognise that neither the Iraqis nor the Iranians wanted the U.S. to stay, and the American public was turning against a failed war.

Couple that with the fact that former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki tried to isolate the Sunnis from any power-sharing or involvement in the political, financial and cultural facets of Iraq.

From the despicable beheadings of freelance photographer James Foley and freelance journalist Steven Sotloff, to the imposition of draconian Sharia Law that violates human and civil rights, the challenges in Iraq are multiplying daily.

Probably no one in the world knows this better than U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who said recently, “… I can bring world leaders to the river, but I cannot force them to drink.”

When the leaders of the world meet later this month at the U.N., it will be time for them to ‘drink the water’ for everyone’s benefit.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS-Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The lack of a national water management policy is hampering Sri Lanka's efforts to tackle recurring droughts. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, May 30 2014 (IPS)

Stuck in mid-day rush hour traffic, commuters packed tight into a tin-roofed bus in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, peer expectantly up at the sky that is beating a savage heat down on the city.

No one speaks, but it is clear they are all waiting for the same thing: for the heavens to open up and provide some relief from the scorching weather that is slowly cooking this island nation.

Over 200 km east, in the agricultural district of Ampara, farmers and rural folk wait equally expectantly for the elusive monsoon, already a few weeks late in coming.

Water levels at the Senanayake Samudraya tank, which holds the bulk of the district’s water needs, are dangerously low, having dropped below 30 percent of the reservoir’s capacity at the end of May, according to the department of irrigation.

All over the country, low-level anxiety over the water shortage is slowly giving way to panic. With each day that the rains do not fall, food shortages increase, poverty worsens and the economy lurches in uncertainty.

Strangely, the government is yet to officially declare a drought situation, even though water levels in most major reservoirs – which supply close to 46 percent of the country’s electricity needs – are alarmingly low.

No rain, no rice

“The problem is that this is not a one-off drought, this is the third big drought in three years." -- Rajith Punyawardena, chief climatologist at the department of agriculture
Given that over 75 percent of Sri Lanka’s population lives in rural areas, with a large percentage engaged in rice farming, a drought threatens the country to its very core.

Harvest losses mounted in the first half of this year, leaving farmers and officials fearful that a predicted weaker-than-average southwest monsoon season will exacerbate the situation.

“It is not looking very good,” warned Rajith Punyawardena, chief climatologist at the department of agriculture, pointing out that the main rice harvesting season, which concluded in April, recorded a loss of 17 percent compared to last year.

According to a recent update from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Sri Lanka only produced 2.4 million metric tons of paddy during the main harvest in 2014, compared to around 2.8 million last year.

The FAO predicted that overall paddy output on the island in 2014 was likely to record a 19 percent loss from the previous year, with an expected production of 3.8 million metric tons – eight percent less than the five-year average yield since 2014.

Weerakkodiarchchilage Premadasa, a farmer from Thanamalvila in Sri Lanka’s southeastern Uva province, told IPS he had already lost half of his two acres of paddy to the drought. “If the rains don’t come, or are too weak, I will have to mortgage the house,” he said.

High demand and predictions of further losses pushed rice prices up by 23 percent this past April.

Meanwhile, a report compiled last month by the World Food Programme (WFP), together with Sri Lanka’s ministries of economic development and disaster management, detailed the country’s precarious situation vis-à-vis erratic weather, including the drought’s potential impact on food security and livelihoods.

In affected regions across the northern, eastern and northwestern provinces, over 768,000 persons out of a total population of 8.3 million have been identified as food insecure, double the 2013 figure. In addition, 18 percent of all households in over 15 districts in those same regions were consuming low-calorie diets.

Over 67 percent of the affected population are farmers who rely heavily on irrigated water for their livelihoods and daily subsistence. An unbroken string of extreme weather events since 2011 has heightened food insecurity and severely impacted rural populations’ resilience to natural disasters like droughts and floods, the report added.

Experts say the northern province, which accounts for 10 percent of the national paddy harvest, is particularly vulnerable. It lost over 60 percent of an estimated 300,000-metric-ton harvest in April, according to Sivapathan Sivakumar, the provincial director for agriculture.

Having borne the brunt of the island’s protracted civil conflict, which finally closed its bloody 30-year chapter in 2009, the people here have shouldered about as much hardship as they can take. A possible debt-trap, caused by repeated losses in harvest, has them on the edge, Sivakumar added.

“We have to come up with a major assistance plan to help them,” the official told IPS.

According to the joint WFP-governmental report, the northern districts of Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi have been hardest hit, with 49 percent and 31 percent of their respective populations identified as food insecure as a result of drought.

Urgent need for national planning

Those who are monitoring the situation say the drought will bring more than just hunger. Already food shortages are taking a disproportionate toll on low-income households, who have no safety net against harvest losses and rising prices.

In the districts surveyed by the WFP, a full 50 percent of households were spending over 65 percent of their monthly income, about 20 dollars, on food.

Poverty levels in these areas are also rising, with families reporting damage to agricultural land, limited employment opportunities as a result of scarce yields and significant reductions to their income.

“The average income in these areas is reported to be 37 percent lower than the national poverty line [of 29 dollars] for the month of March,” the report found.

In some areas, there was a big gap between expected income and actual income. In the northwestern Kurunegala district, a relatively rich region, actual income was 76 dollars, 81 percent below the expected income of 190 dollars.

In the northern Vavuniya district, actual income for the month of April was 67 percent below expected income.

The WFP has recommended the immediate commencements of six months of emergency assistance to the worst affected populations, but officials say this is easier said than done.

“The problem is that this is not a one-off drought, this is the third big drought in three years,” Punyawardena told IPS. “We need a national plan to assess and deal with the impact of extreme weather events.”

A drought between December 2011 and October 2012 affected 1.8 million people in the same regions currently enduring the dry spell, according to assessments by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. During that time, total harvest losses were feared to be between 15 and 20 percent.

So far, the only drought-related move has come from the ministry of agriculture, which has recommended that 35 percent of the 779,000 hectares of land under paddy cultivation be used for crops that require less water.

But Punyawardena believes that paddy farmers steeped in traditional farming practices are unlikely to change their methods or crops quickly. Such a move, he said, “needs time and a bit more work.”

As Premadasa, the farmer from the Uva province, pointed out, “Farmers like me need advice at the start of the planting season so we can plan accordingly. We get some information, but we need more detailed updates.”

Similar long-term planning will also be required to cushion the blow a weak monsoon could deliver to the country’s energy sector.

The Ceylon Electricity Board reported that as of the last week of May, hydro power was only meeting 11.8 percent of the country’s energy needs, compared to 46 percent during previous monsoon seasons.

Water experts told IPS there is an urgent need for an integrated national water management policy that takes note of fluctuating rain patterns.

“It will allow for national-level planning of water resources, identifying and prioritising needs and acting accordingly,” Kusum Atukorale, who chairs the Sri Lanka Water Partnership, told IPS.

Such a policy, she said, would allow for the kind of countrywide planning that is woefully lacking right now.

Until the government puts its best foot forward, the people of Sri Lanka can do little more than look to the skies and pray for the rain to fall.

(END)

Biofortified beans. Credit: Courtesy of BioFORT

By Fabíola Ortiz
KIGALI, Apr 17 2014 (IPS)

Latin America is one of the regions in the world suffering from “hidden hunger” – a chronic lack of the micronutrients needed to ward off problems like anaemia, blindness, impaired immune systems, and stunted growth.

Brazil is heading up a food biofortification effort in the region to turn this situation around.

Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras are targets of the biofortification programme, after six countries in Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia) and three in Asia (Bangladesh, India and Pakistan).

Behind the initiative is HarvestPlus, which forms part of the CGIAR Consortium research programme on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.

CGIAR is an independent consortium leading the global effort to modify food in developing regions by adding essential minerals and vitamins.

In Latin America, the project is led by the Brazilian Biofortification Network (BioFORT), which since 2003 has brought together 150 researchers from EMBRAPA, the Brazilian government’s agricultural research agency, and from universities and specialised centres.

EMBRAPA food engineer Marília Nutti, who heads the BioFORT network in Brazil and the rest of the region, told IPS that the three countries in Latin America with the highest rates of micronutrient deficiency are Haiti, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

HarvestPlus developed a Biofortification Priority Index (BPI) to identify countries in the developing South with the highest levels of micronutrient deficiency.

Agronomist Miguel Lacayo at the Central American University in Managua told IPS that Nicaragua is second only to Haiti in terms of problems in the production and availability of food for a nutritious diet in this region.

“The diet in Nicaragua is principally made up of maize and beans, which are eaten two to three times a day,” the expert said. “People eat a lot of maize tortillas, accompanied by beans, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Lacayo spoke with IPS during the Mar. 31-Apr. 2 Second Global Conference on Biofortification, organised by HarvestPlus in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

“The idea is to increase the concentration of iron and zinc in these two staple foods, to reduce nutrition problems. We want to help bring down anaemia levels,” he said.

Severe nutritional deficits are especially a problem among children in rural areas in Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in Latin America. “It’s a chronic problem among the rural poor, who make up 60 percent of the population,” Lacayo said.

Biofortification uses conventional plant-breeding methods to enhance the concentration of micronutrients in food crops through a combination of laboratory and agricultural techniques.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports that two billion people in the world today suffer from one or more micronutrient deficiencies, and that every four seconds someone dies of hunger and related causes.

In December 2012, the World Bank released a toolkit providing nutrition emergency response guidance to policy-makers, seeking to ensure health, food and nutritional security for vulnerable mothers and their children in Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the World Bank an estimated 7.2 million children under five are chronically malnourished in the region.

The Bank also warned about the economic costs of malnutrition, estimating individual productivity losses at more than 10 percent of lifetime earnings, and gross domestic product lost to malnutrition as high as two to three percent in many countries.

The World Food Programme (WFP) Hunger Map shows that the malnutrition rate in Nicaragua stands at between 10 and 19 percent, while in Haiti 35 percent of the population is malnourished.

Nicaragua began to biofortify foods in 2005 with support from Agrosalud, a consortium of institutions working in 14 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean that is mainly financed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Agrosalud has also supported the inclusion of micronutrients in foods in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru.

Of these countries, Panama went on to launch a national biofortification programme, with no outside financing.

The first phase of Agrosalud ended in 2010, and Nicaragua was made a priority target in the second phase, with backing from BioFORT, initially focused on maize and beans.

“We want to support biofortified crops,” Lacayo commented. “We are going to create a network in Nicaragua with HarvestPlus, governments, non-governmental organisations, universities, and national and international bodies.”

The alliance will include 125 researchers from 25 university institutions, and the national plan is to get underway in June, with the aim of promoting food security and sovereignty in Nicaragua.

Lacayo stressed that one element of the plan will be support for small farmers in the production of seeds “for their own consumption, as well as a surplus to sell…We want to give this added value, and to strengthen small rural enterprises.”

The agronomist foresees a lasting alliance with Brazil through EMBRAPA, to help reduce hidden hunger in Nicaragua.

BioFORT’s Nutti said the network has an “innovative focus” of combining nutrition, agriculture and health.

“Biofortification is a new science. The big advantage of the project is that it has brought together agronomists, economists, nutritionists and experts in food sciences behind the common goal of having an impact on health,” she said.

Initially, HarvestPlus asked Brazil only to biofortify cassava. But BioFORT decided it was also necessary to incorporate other micronutrients in seven other foods that are essential to the Brazilian diet: cowpeas, beans, rice, sweet potatoes, maize, squash and wheat.

“This is a very big country. You have to show people that this biofortified diet is better,” Nutti said.

Brazil is one of the HarvestPlus country programmes, because it operates with its own technical resources and is seen as a model in the administration of the biofortification effort.

While in Africa, the main target of the initiative, 40 million dollars will be allocated to biofortification, the budget for Latin America over the next five years will range between 500,000 and one million dollars.

That is not much, considering the magnitude of the task, BioFORT technology researcher José Luis Viana de Carvalho told IPS.

In his view, Brazil has the experience needed to forge alliances that contribute to the development of biofortification in the region.

“Brazil is a granary due to the quantity of cereals it produces and its cutting-edge technology. We should think in terms of a 20-year timeframe for reducing the pockets of hidden hunger,” he added.

He said that in terms of public health, the cost of spending on biofortification is lower than the cost of not undertaking the effort.

“Prevention through quality food is important. Biofortification is not medicine, it is prevention. It is the daily diet,” de Carvalho said.