UN increases food aid appeal for Zimbabwe

The United Nations has raised its humanitarian assistance appeal for Zimbabwe from the initial 360 million dollars early this year to 400 million U.S. dollars due to the rising food insecure population.

Zimbabwe, together with other countries in southern Africa, was hit by an El-Nino induced drought which has left up to four million people in need of food aid.

UN resident coordinator in Zimbabwe Bishow Parajuli said more funds were required to respond to the rising need for food aid between July and March next year.

"We have now mobilized 100 million dollars and we remain with a funding gap of 300 million dollars. We are appealing for additional money from development partners to respond to the humanitarian needs," he said.

The UN and its agencies are working in conjunction with the Zimbabwe government to coordinate a humanitarian response program to the drought that has also killed more than 20,000 cattle since January.

The World Food Program, on its part, said it required 158 million dollars to feed people affected by hunger until March next year, of which only three million dollars had so far been mobilized.

WFP representative and country director Eddie Rowe told Xinhua that the UN agency would need to feed 1.2 million Zimbabweans between July and September, 1.9 million between September and December and another 2.3 million people between January and March next year.

"Most of the traditional donors are showing interest and some have even made pledges. Non-traditional donors are also showing interest to assist and these include Russia, AfDB and the Dangote Foundation," he said.

Meanwhile, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service Ngoni Masoka told a multi-stakeholder meeting on drought response that government required 300,000 dollars to carry out an urban vulnerability assessment to determine the number of people requiring food assistance in urban areas.

"Plans are underway to a start assisting food insecure households in peri-urban areas and full scale food distribution will commence once the vulnerability assessment is completed," he said.

He said according to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC), 2.2 million Zimbabweans required urgent food assistance between July and September this year.

The figure would gradually increase in the last quarter of the year before reaching a peak of 4.1 million between January and March next year.

"We are therefore appealing to the humanitarian community to support government to combat hunger and save lives and livelihoods of food insecure people," he said.

The government in February launched a 1.5 billion dollars food aid appeal to avert mass starvation.

An official with the country's grain importation task-force Jasper Marangwanda said government had since January imported 144,879 metric tons of grain out of a targeted 854,082 tons.

The government's grain stocks had also risen from 74,029 tons in March to 153,936 tons by July 5, he said.

"Given a monthly requirement of 33, 452 tons, current stocks are expected to last the next four months," he said.

The government has also launched an emergency school feeding program targeting rural schools in response to the drought. Endit