Major Food Appeal For Zimbabwe As WFP Relief Distributions Begin

With more than five million Zimbabweans facing severe food
shortages, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today appealed for
US$140 million to provide vital relief rations over the next six months.
Without additional contributions, WFP warned it will run out of stocks in
January - at the very peak of the crisis.



"Millions of Zimbabweans have already run out of food or are surviving on
just one meal a day - and the crisis is going to get much worse in the
coming months," said Mustapha Darboe, WFP Regional Director for East,
Central and Southern Africa. "WFP can prevent this crisis from becoming a
disaster but we need more donations - and we need them now."



According to the FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission, more than
2 million people are already in need of assistance. This figure will rise
to 5.1 million - or 45 percent of the population - in early 2009. WFP is
planning to assist around 4 million of those affected.



The situation is already critical in many rural areas, particularly in the
worst affected southern districts but also in some districts in the east,
centre and northwest of the country. A large number of farmers harvested
little - if anything - this year and have now exhausted their meager
stocks. Many hungry families are reportedly living on one meal a day,
exchanging precious livestock for buckets of maize or eating wild foods
such as baobab and amarula.



Delayed by the government's three-month suspension of most NGO field
activities, WFP and its NGO partners began distributing monthly emergency
rations under the large-scale vulnerable group feeding programme at the
start of October, targeting rural communities worst affected by this year's
very poor harvest.



Tens of thousands of beneficiaries have already received life-saving food
assistance under this programme over the past week and WFP hopes to reach
1.8 million by the end of the month. Operations will be scaled up to around
3.3 million in the first three months of 2009 before the main cereal
harvest begins in April.



In addition, WFP is targeting around 800,000 people each month under its
separate safety-net programmes - taking its overall caseload to around 2.5
million in October and more than 4 million in the first three months of
2009.



Given the nationwide nature of the food shortages, WFP will expand its
relief programme to 37 districts - five more than in previous years. WFP
will also enhance the nutritional quality of its food basket by adding
corn-soya blend to its basic mix of cereals, pulses and vegetable oil to
help prevent malnutrition rates from rising. In Zimbabwe, 28 percent of
children under five are already chronically malnourished.
















To boost its already-substantial logistics operation, WFP has opened a new
transhipment point in the central town of Gweru and a new warehouse in the
South African border town of Musina, which has the capacity to bag 50,000
tons of food over the next six months.



But these plans are all subject to sufficient donations arriving in time.
WFP currently faces a shortfall of over 145,000 metric tons of food,
including 110,000 tons of cereals. Without extra donations, WFP will run
out of supplies in January - just as needs are peaking.



"Our donors have been extraordinarily generous over the past six years,
but the food crisis is far from over. We are urging them to dig deep once
again," said Darboe, adding that cash donations will allow WFP to purchase
crucial commodities regionally.



In addition to WFP's beneficiaries, a group of US-sponsored NGOs known as
C-SAFE plans to provide food to over 1 million Zimbabweans in districts not
covered by WFP. With these two humanitarian pipelines, food assistance
should reach around 5 million people at the peak of the crisis.



While WFP has received almost US$175 million so far in 2008, another US$140
million is urgently needed to fund WFP's huge emergency operation until
April 2009.



Donors to WFP's operations in Zimbabwe in 2008 include: United States
(US$105 million); United Kingdom (US$18 million); Australia (US$14
million); Netherlands (US$11 million); EC (US$10 million); Canada (US$6
million); Japan (US$3 million); Norway (US$2 million); Switzerland (US$1.8
million); Ireland (US$1.5 million); Sweden (US$ 1.2 million); Italy
(US$780,000); Spain (US$470,000); and, Greece (US$72,000).




WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency and the UN's frontline
agency for hunger solutions. This year, WFP plans to feed 90 million people
in 80 countries.