Millions face food insecurity in SADC
RUNDU – More than 50 million people in the southern African region face food insecurity due to challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was said by the Southern African Regional Vulnerability Committee in its Regional Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis (RVAA) Programme report.
The findings were revealed at the programme’s Annual Organisational Meeting (AOM) by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Vulnerability Committee convened virtually under the leadership of Mozambique on Monday.
The annual meeting is aimed to provide the National and Regional Vulnerability Assessment Committees and its International Cooperating Partners (ICPs) an opportunity to reflect on their work in order to find solutions to challenges and advance good practices to Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis (VAA)
practitioners in the region.
A statement provided to the media yesterday said about 51.3 million people, both in urban and rural areas of Southern Africa, are food insecure due to Covid-19 and the figure is likely to rise with the extended impacts of Covid-19.
It says last year December, the VAA dissemination forum issued an updated synthesis report, which integrated Covid-19 into all sectoral analyses, where it projected an increase from 41 million in 2019/2020 to 51.3 million people expected to be food insecure in the region.
The data provided by RVAA is regarded to be important to governments and humanitarian partners for them to prepare and develop preventative and developmental actions in response to food insecurity crises.
Head of World Food Organisation (WHO) Vulnerability Assessment and Mapping for Southern Africa and Indian Ocean States Andrew Odero during the meeting said data provided by the
NVAC has over the years formed a good basis for discussions at the food system conventions such as the United Nations Food Systems Summit. Odero urged participants to find ways of strengthening the use and uptake of RVAA products and knowledge assets to support decision-making and influence policies in the midst of challenges such as climate change, floods, increased cyclonic activities and extreme poverty driven by Covid-19.
Chairperson of the SADC Regional Vulnerability Committee António Pacheco Dias Lima at the same meeting also called on member states to find ways to share success stories, opportunities and progress captured in national Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis to inform food security interventions as the region battles Covid-19 and food insecurity.
In 2019, Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe declared states of emergencies based on the NVAC analysis.