UN cuts rations as Zimbabwe food crisis grows

Posted Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:06pm AEDT Updated Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:45pm AEDT

The World Food Program warns that food aid to 4 million people in Zimbabwe will run out by January unless it receives new funding.
The United Nations food agency says it has had no response from international donors to an emergency appeal and it has started rationing cereals and beans.
It has had to cut each person's monthly 12-kilogram cereal ration to 10kg and has almost halved the bean ration to just 1kg to make current stocks last longer.
"Unfortunately we have been forced to cut the rations that we've been distributing to beneficiaries this month," Richard Lee, a spokesman for the World Food Program, told ABC Radio National.
"And that is because we simply do not have enough resources to fund our operation all the way through until the end of March when the harvest will start in Zimbabwe.
"So we're trying to stretch our resources as far as possible so that we can continue to provide at least some assistance to as many people as possible, for as long as possible."
The economic collapse of Zimbabwe, running inflation and President Robert Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms in 2000 has led to a drop in harvests and more people dependent on aid.
The UN first started feeding 2 million people in Zimbabwe in October, but that number has doubled and Mr Lee says it is expected to grow.
"Many of them are completely reliant on international food assistance," he said.
"We're talking about communities, particularly in the worst-affected rural areas, which have no access to food. Farmers have exhausted the small amount they harvested this year and they really are entirely reliant on the World Food Program and our NGO partners to provide them assistance month after month until that harvest starts in April."
The World Food Program launched an emergency appeal last month to raise $215 million but there has been little response. Mr Lee says they do not know why.
"Some people say that it is the financial crisis. Clearly that has been top of the agenda of many of our major donors," he said.
"Other people say that countries are waiting for the power-sharing negotiations to conclude, and then yet again others say there are crises all over the place that governments are trying to fund and help support.
"It is very difficult but we really need donations now because we don't have any food at the moment for January and February when this crisis in Zimbabwe will really hit its peak.
"We really need donations now so that we can buy food here in South Africa, ship it quickly into Zimbabwe and get it out to the rural areas that need it most."
Political stalemate
There is concern that some donor nations are reluctant to hand over millions of dollars in aid to Mr Mugabe until he agrees to a power-sharing deal with the Opposition Leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
But hopes of such a deal are fading with both leaders disagreeing over key cabinet positions.
Mr Tsvangirai has refused to a compromise deal to share the home affairs ministry with Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF Party.
And now Mr Mugabe has told a local newspaper that a new government will be in place within a week, effectively sidelining the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
"It is not possible for a government to share a ministry but ... they say they want to share the security ministry," Cephas Chiduku, the deputy chair of the Australian branch of the MDC, said.
"Mugabe's not also willing to share the defence ministry and then there's no reason why he would want to share the home affairs ministry.
"Then it won't be power-sharing, if we say it is [a] power-sharing issue. This is the reason why Morgan Tsvangirai doesn't want to share in the [ministry], I think that's all logical."
Mr Chiduku admits the longer it takes for a power-sharing deal to be agreed, the less able the government is to help the people of Zimbabwe.
But he says "it also makes the people actually see what the Mugabe government and regime is really like".
"It's actually wise for the people actually to be more patient even if they're suffering, until they have a government which is observing their will," he said.
But the longer the political stalemate drags on, the less able Zimbabwe is to drag itself out of the economic crisis that could see more than 5 million people dependent on food aid in January next year.

Based on a report by Jennifer Macey for The World Today.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/12/2418088.htm?section=world