food insecurity

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has warned that imports of maize as a result of the drought could increase the South Africa’s current account deficit.
 
The bank, which released its 2016 Financial Stability Review Report, is of the view that this gives rise to financial stability risks.
 
The Reserve Bank says a combination of the drought and a weaker exchange rate has impacted agricultural commodity prices severely.
 

The United Nations Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator says that Zimbabwe faces rising food shortages as drought, exacerbated by the El Nino weather pattern worsens.

The strong El Nino episode has raised serious concerns regarding the impact on food insecurity, with harvests badly affected by drought conditions, raising the spectre of massive production declines of key cereal crops such as maize.

This emerged at a multi-stakeholders meeting, jointly hosted by the Office of the President and Cabinet and the United Nations System in Zimbabwe last week.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says the World Food Day is about raising global awareness on partnerships that are needed to eradicate hunger in the world.
 
FAO representative, Dr Tobias Takavarasha, says that the world celebrates World Food Day on Friday in an effort to not only take time to actively help those who are starving, but to also help in eradicating poverty and malnutrition.
 
Dr Takavarasha says efforts need to be made to remember the poor, to distribute food and to teach everyone about nutrition.
 

Britain and the United States have reportedly launched a programme to rescue at least 650 000 Zimbabwean hunger victims, with the two countries pledging to provide up to US$43m for food aid.

This came as the World Food Programme (WFP) says in August that around 1.5 million Zimbabweans were expected to go hungry this year after a dramatic fall in maize production.

International Food Policy Organisation suggests in a report that hunger could be eliminated by 2025 if enough resources are committed and countries scale up policies proven to work.
 
In the 2013 Global Food Policy Report, Shanggen Fan, director general of International Food Policy Research Institute, points out that, "Based on the successful experiences of several developing countries, we see the clear potential for ending hunger and under-nutrition by 2025 if the necessary policies and investments are adopted.
 

The United Nations (UN) is reportedly seeking to raise US$60 million to help feed Zimbabwe’s two million people in need of food assistance.

The country director of the UN World Food Programme in Zimbabwe, Sory Ouane, says the UN has budgeted US$86m for its food assistance programme to June this year.

Ouane says Zimbabwe is becoming a ‘forgotten emergency’ as there are other countries like the Central African Republic and South Sudan also in need of aid assistance.