Record 45-million people in Southern Africa face hunger

The UN World Food Programme said on Thursday a record 45-million people in the 16-nation Southern African Development Community faced growing hunger due to repeated drought, widespread flooding and economic disarray.

Southern Africa is in the grips of a severe drought, as climate change wreaks havoc in impoverished countries already struggling to cope with extreme natural disasters, such as Cyclone Idai, which devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi last year.

Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Southern Africa, is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a decade, marked by soaring inflation and shortages of food, fuel, medicines and electricity.

“This hunger crisis is on a scale we’ve not seen before and the evidence shows it’s going to get worse,” WFP Southern Africa regional director Lola Castro said.

“The annual cyclone season has begun and we simply cannot afford a repeat of the devastation caused by 2019’s unprecedented storms.”

The agency plans to provide “lean season” assistance to 8.3 million people grappling with

“crisis” or “emergency” levels of hunger in eight of the hardesthit countries, which include Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini and Malawi.

To date, the WFP had secured just $205m (R2.96bn) of the $489m (R7bn) required for this assistance and had been forced to resort heavily to internal borrowing to ensure food reached those in need, it said.

In December, the UN said it was procuring food assistance for 4.1-million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the population of a country where shortages are being exacerbated by runaway inflation and climate-induced drought.

“Zimbabwe is in the throes of its worst hunger emergency in a decade, with 7.7-million people — half the population — seriously food insecure,” the agency said.

In Zambia and droughtstricken Lesotho, 20% of the population face a food crisis, as do 10% of Namibians.

Castro said if the agency did not receive the necessary funding, it would have no choice but to assist fewer of those most in need, and with less.