Harvest should be a time for celebrations, weddings and full bellies in southern Malawi. However, Christopher Witimani, Lilian Matafle and their seven children and four grandchildren had nothing to celebrate last week as they picked their meager maize crop.
Last year’s drought, followed by erratic rains, hit the village of Nkhotakota hard. However, this year the rains never came and, for a second year running, the family grain store is empty. If they manage their savings carefully and eat just one small meal per day, they might just have enough food for two more months.
By August, they and tens of thousands of other small farmers in southern Malawi would have completely run out of food, with no prospect of another harvest for at least seven months, Irish charity Concern Worldwide said, adding that with nothing to sell and no chance of earning money, Witimani, Matafle and family would starve.
Illustration: Mountain People
“I am worried the children will starve to death. I do not know what to do,” Matafle said.
“We need food. We are in a desperate situation,” Witimani said.
Nations are just waking up to the most serious global food crisis of the past 25 years. Caused by the strongest El Nino weather event since 1982, droughts and heatwaves have ravaged much of India, Latin America and parts of Southeast Asia. However, the worst effects of this natural phenomenon, which begins with waters warming in the equatorial Pacific, are to be found in southern Africa. A second consecutive year without rain threatens catastrophe for some of the poorest people in the world.
The scale of the crisis unfolding in 10 or more southern African nations has shocked the UN. Lulled into thinking that Ethiopia in 1985 was the last of the large-scale famines affecting many millions of people, donor nations have been slow to pledge funds or support. More than US$650 million and 7.9 million tonnes of food are needed immediately, the UN said. By Christmas, the situation would be severe.
Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Madagascar, Angola and Swaziland have already declared national emergencies or disasters, as have seven of South Africa’s nine provinces. Other nations, including Botswana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have also been badly hit. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has appealed for US$1.5 billion to buy food, and Malawi is expected to declare that more than 8 million people, or half the nation, would need food aid by November.
More than 31 million people in the region are said by the UN to need food now, but this number is expected to rise to at least 49 million across almost all of southern Africa by Christmas. With 12 million more hungry people in Ethiopia, 7 million in Yemen, 6 million in Southern Sudan and more in the Central African Republic and Chad, a continent-scale food crisis is unfolding.
“Food security across southern Africa will start deteriorating by July, reaching its peak between December and April next year,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
The regional cereal deficit already stands at 7.9 million tonnes and continues to put upward pressure on market prices, which are already showing unprecedented increases, diminishing purchasing power and thereby reducing food access. As food insecurity tightens and water scarcity increases due to the drought, there are early signs of acute malnutrition in Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabawe.
For Coco Ushiyama, head of the UN’s World Food Programme in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, just working out how to import 1 million tonnes of food, needed to support between 5 million and 8 million people in Malawi over the next 12 months, is proving nightmarishly difficult. With no guarantees of money from donors, she cannot buy the food on the open market, or book ships and transport.
“We are very concerned. Last year, like many other countries in the region, Malawi had a double disaster with erratic rains and then floods, which led into droughts,” Ushiyama said. “Last year, 2.8 million people were affected. Then we had a deficit of 220,000 tonnes of food. This year, we are anticipating it will be four times as bad. The maize price is already exceptionally high.”
“We are monitoring 50 markets throughout the country and already they are seeing abnormally high prices. We have very worryingly high admission rates for childhood malnutrition in health clinics. In some areas, it is very serious already and it is likely to get much more serious. It will be a regional issue,” she said.
The government has declared a disaster and is to publish a new assessment of its needs in the next few weeks.
Malawian Vice President Saulos Chilima has said that about 1.3 million tonnes of maize would be needed.
Politicians might talk of going on to the world market to buy 1 million tonnes of maize, but Ushiyama is unsure where it would come from. There is usually enough food in the region, but South Africa, which usually exports 1 million tonnes of food per year, would need to import 3.5 million tonnes this year.
Only Zambia might have enough food to export and it has imposed restrictions, she said.
“South Africa is in trouble. Nearby Zambia has had a better harvest than most countries, but it has put export restrictions on its food. If we import it [from outside Africa], the food will take four to six months [to arrive]. We have learned from experience that the rains start in November, so the roads will be terrible when the food is most needed and some lorry drivers will refuse to come. By November, we will need to have pre-positioned food in key areas. But to get it there by then means ordering the food right now,” Ushiyama said.
Finding the cash to feed possibly 50 million people for eight or more months is the biggest problem of all, because Africa’s slow-burn crisis must compete with Middle East wars, refugees and natural disasters for attention, the UN said.
According to the UN, which held an unprecedented humanitarian summit this week in Istanbul, Turkey, 125 million people worldwide need long-term assistance and a further 60 million have been forced from their homes by war, violence and disaster.
More than US$1.5 billion has been requested by southern African governments, but less than one-quarter of this has been pledged, the OCHA said. Officially, the deficit is US$677 million (87 percent), but this is likely to grow when nations complete their assessments of the harvests in the next few weeks.
“The window for responding in a meaningful manner is closing rapidly,” said Shadrack Omol, senior adviser to the UN Children’s Emergency Fund. “The concern is that slow-onset emergencies, like the one we are dealing with in southern Africa, do not get enough attention, because they creep up on us.”
Oxfam country director in Malawi John Makina said: “The donors just do not have the money; there is donor fatigue. Malawi has been hit by drought, then floods, then drought. The donors are getting tired of it. Last year, Malawi alone needed US$170 million. This year and next, it will be far more.”
“The full impact will be felt from October to March next year. It is looking really bad. The most affected will be the poorest and jobless. They will end up selling what little they possess. The price of maize flour has already gone to 9,000 kwachas [US$12.61] for 50kg. It will double again for sure,” he said.
British Minister of State for International Development Nick Hurd, who has visited Mozambique, wants Britain to lead the humanitarian effort. However, money cannot be given directly to the nation following a corruption scandal and the government must work through a consortium of non-governmental organizations, providing food vouchers, medical aid and food-for-work schemes.
“We cannot and will not stand idly by while millions suffer. Britain is playing a leading role in helping countries across Africa to cope with the impact of El Nino. Support for people affected by El Nino is important to Africa and also firmly in Britain’s national interest,” Hurd said.
In villages across southern Africa, people are fearful, unsure how they can survive. In Mozambique, where Britain is contributing US$17.1 million over three years, some food aid has arrived in the village of Mblalava.
The women are ecstatic.
“It has been two-and-a-half years since we had good rain,” said Rosita Chauque, a mother of three. “When the drought started, we used to be able to find vegetables in the bush, but even these have gone now. We used to make and sell charcoal, but there are so many other people doing that now it is not possible. We have thought of leaving, but where to? We have no crops in the fields, no food for the cattle and nothing for ourselves. There is no water, no grass. People are selling their animals. They have no other resources. There is a lot of suffering.”
“The situation is critical,” said Abdoulaye Balde, World Food Programme country director in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo. “We are at the point of no return.”
Droughts and “hungry seasons” are common throughout southern Africa, but the breadth of this year’s crisis is very unusual, said Caoimhe de Barra, Concern Worldwide country director in Malawi. Her frontline workers see rural people already employing traditional coping strategies, including eating wild foods, taking children out of school, selling their animals and assets.
“Early action is key. If we can start supporting people now, we can save lives and prevent an even worse situation later this year. People are not currently dying of hunger, but the overall health of the population will be severely affected by hunger-related illnesses. Malnutrition will blight the life chances of countless more Malawian children,” she said.
“Much more needs to be done to support communities to survive and strive over the coming months. We met families who have received no external support and who are simply desperate. We need to urgently scale up our interventions to prevent this situation from becoming a catastrophe,” International Red Cross secretary-general Elhadj As Sy said.
Relief from Africa’s long drought might finally be coming, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which is monitoring the temperature of waters in the Pacific. These are said to be cooling rapidly and are expected to be “neutral” by the middle of next month.
The UN said that signals the coming end of the El Nino, the droughts and the worldwide heatwaves.
However, the effects would not be felt in southern Africa until April next year when the next main harvest should be in.
However, the WMO said that there might be a sting in the tale. There is a 50-50 chance that the continent would be hit from September by El Nino’s climatic “twin,” known as La Nina, which develops as the Pacific Ocean equatorial waters cool after an El Nino.
Instead of droughts, La Nina usually brings heavier monsoon rains in Southeast Asia, and much cooler and wetter conditions in southern Africa.
“We pray hard for rain and then ... pray harder that it stops. Is there no end of extreme weather?” Malawian villager Richard Kapenda said.
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