Food aid needed in Zimbabwe’s urban areas

By Violet Gonda
25 November 2008

Tearfund is a UK based Christian organisation that works in relief and development across the world, to end poverty. The aid agency has been working through local NGOs in Zimbabwe for the past 20 years, providing emergency food aid and access to water.

Karyn Beattie is the disaster management officer with Tearfund and was in Zimbabwe recently to see how the agency could increase its aid program. She said the food situation is extremely bad and ranges from a complete lack of availability in many areas, while in others it’s totally unaffordable.

Traditionally hunger hits rural areas, but the scale of this humanitarian crisis has also seriously hit the urban areas. In the two weeks that she was in Zimbabwe the Tearfund officer said aid agencies such as the United Nations are targeting very specific groups, and only feeding people in the rural areas. The vulnerable groups that they target are mainly people living with HIV/AIDS and child headed households. But this is a problem as the majority of people in urban areas now also need help.

Although food aid is being sent to Zimbabwe Beattie said it is not enough, as almost everyone needs food aid now. But the government is trying to make the situation look less serious than it is, by asking for less food from humanitarian groups than is actually needed.

She said the government agreed to provide large amounts of food itself, when it knew full well it could not afford it. Beattie added that donors like the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the Red Cross are bringing in around 400 000 tonnes of food; “But that is supposed to be a complimentary effort. In other words the government is supposed to bring in the majority of the food, which is about 800 000 tonnes.” To date the amount of food brought in by the government has only been 150 000 tonnes.

“Unless we get a government who is going to be prepared to say we need help and we need it very quickly, I can’t see a way through the mess at the moment,” she warned.

There are groups like the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZIMVAC) who carry out assessments, usually after harvest around June and July, to look at what was harvested and the vulnerability of the people. It is out of their reports that donors such as the WFP came up with figures estimating that around 5.1 million people face starvation.

Beattie said the authorities in Zimbabwe are aware of these disturbing figures especially as the independent assessments are done in combination with government officials and NGOs. However the government always officially says it can handle the crisis and will source food from neighbouring countries like South Africa and Zambia. But later on they quietly allow aid agencies to bring in extra food.

The WFP announced last week it had signed a new, two year US$500 million aid deal to ‘allow’ them to supply food to economically and politically ravaged Zimbabwe. The WFP said the money will provide 350 000 tons of food to the most vulnerable groups.

Tearfund also reports that even in the areas where food is being distributed it is still being politicised in some rural communities. Aid groups rely on a variety of stakeholders to identify vulnerable groups and in some cases chiefs and local leaders are said to be choosing beneficiaries on the basis of political affiliation.