United Nations Radio

With the food crisis worsening, the World Food Programme is planning to double the number of its beneficiaries in Zimbabwe in November by scaling up its operations to reach almost four million hungry people in rural and urban areas across the country. Derrick Mbatha asks WFP Spokesman Richard Lee how much funding is currently needed:

RICHARD: At the moment we need for our whole operations up until the end of March, we need $140 million. Clearly we need any donations we can get right now, the more the better so that we can buy food, so that we can ship it into Zimbabwe, so that we can get it out to the worst affected communities. And hopefully we will get the resources. The donors have been very generous over the years, and we're confident they will come forward again. We're just urging them to come forward now. We really need additional donations now.

MBATHA:How many people are we talking about here?

RICHARD: Over all, our estimates point to around five million people in Zimbabwe needing food assistance at the peak of the crisis in the first three months of 2009. The WFP is aiming to reach about four million of those, and then there is a consortium of three US-sponsored NGOs which will also provide assistance to an additional one million. So that between the two of us, we will provide free humanitarian food assistance to five million people across Zimbabwe. But clearly that depends on resources, and at the moment the WFP simply does not have the resources to provide assistance to all those people. We need US $140 million, otherwise we won't have enough food and we could be facing a very, very serious situation in Zimbabwe.

DERRICK. Yes. And I understand that WFP is planning to scale up its feeding programme, right?

RICHARD: Absolutely! We are going to double our distributions in November. Last month we provided food assistance to two million people. This month we're going to try and reach four million people. But unfortunately, we don't have the resources to provide every one of those four million people in November with a full food basket. We are having to reduce the amount of cereals that each person receives and the amount of beans that each person receives so that we can stretch our available resources for as long as possible because we want to be providing at least some assistance to as many people as possible for as long as possible.

DERRICK: Where does WFP get the food that it is using to feed people in Zimbabwe?

RICHARD: Some countries, particularly the USA, provide us with in-kind donations so we actually receive food from the US. Other countries provide us with cash donations which we then use to buy food on the international market. The majority of the food for Zimbabwe we have bought in the Southern African region, particularly in South Africa. That's where I am now, and the country has a maize surplus, so if do get cash contributions, we would most likely buy more maize here in South Africa. And obviously that means we can get it into Zimbabwe speedily: there's a good infrastructure, we have a good logistics network in place. And if we get the contributions, we can buy food here, ship it up to Zimbabwe and get it out to the communities that really desperately need it.

DERRICK: Have you approached any potential donors for this contribution you're looking for?

RICHARD: Absolutely! We've been talking to all our regular donors and obviously, appealing to anyone who wants to assist be that a government, corporation or individuals. And, as I say, we are confident that donors will come forward.

We've received hundreds of millions of dollars since we started large-scale distributions in Zimbabwe back in 2002.

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