Southern Africa: Some gains made, but food needs continue

By Karen Plater
Presbyterian World Service and Development (Canada) /ACT International

Catherine Shawa is raising five children, ages one to twelve, on her own.

A difficult job in any environment, it is more difficult in Enkondhlweni, Mphembre, a remote community in northern Malawi.

Last year, Catherine Shawa ran out of food to feed her children. Drought caused her maize crop, which would have been harvested in June 2002, to fail. It was the second failure in two years. Unemployed, with no money to buy food for her children, Shawa and her family found themselves caught in a food crisis that was threatening the lives of some 12 million people in southern Africa. The majority of those affected were in Zimbabwe, but a significant number of people in Malawi also lived with a similar threat of running out of food.

The Livingstonia Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, a member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, was one of several ACT members that responded to the crisis. The synod distributed maize and likuni phala, a special high-protein food supplement for children under five, to 7,600 families in northern Malawi from October 2002 to March 2003. This was done in cooperation with local members of ACT in Malawi and with support from ACT members around the world. A thousand families in Mphembre, including Shawa's, received assistance from this distribution. Without the food, Catherine Shawa feels that she and her children would have starved.

ACT members in Malawi conducted assessments in their districts in June and July last year to identify populations in need. Their results correlated with the findings of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program assessments, which estimated that 400,000 people will need food assistance between January and April.

Based on these results, ACT members in Malawi submitted another appeal to the alliance — AFMW31. The members seek to provide food relief and agricultural inputs, which include maize seeds, and tools to help farmers recover. Earlier responses by the ACT alliance helped families like Shawa's survive the food crisis. The food helped children stay in school and farmers to have the energy to continue farming. So far, however, funds for the latest response are limited.

This year, while the situation in Malawi has improved, food assistance is still needed. Several areas have experienced crop failures for the third consecutive year due to harsh weather conditions — drought and floods — and pest infestations. Deepening poverty and high unemployment mean that people in these areas do not have the money to buy food, especially after selling many of their assets to help them cope with crop failures in the previous two years.

In addition, even families that were able to plant crops last year face a precarious period from now through March. Because of poor harvests, they have little or no food stores with which to feed themselves while the current crops are in the ground. Until harvest time in April, these families have a serious gap in their food supply.