CLOUDINE MATOLA
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has availed US$11.27m to the World Food Programme (WPF) to assist vulnerable Zimbabweans, Business Times can report.
Speaking yesterday at the launch of USAID’s support in Harare the WFP country director Francesca Erdelmann said it is the goal of the organisation to ensure that everyone has access to a variety of healthy food.
“On behalf of the United Nations World Food Programme it is my pleasure to welcome you all to our Harare warehouse to officially launch USAID’s support to the Lean Season Assistant (LSA) the period January to March 2024.
“At WFP Zimbabwe our goal is to ensure that everyone in the country has access to a variety of nutritious foods and can always consume the recommended amounts,” said Erdelmann.
She said according to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, (ZimVAC) report about 2.7 million people will not have enough cereal to eat during this first quarter of 2024.
In addition, the situation has been worsened by the El Nino weather phenomenon where the country is facing erratic rainfall and high temperatures.
Erdelmann also said, the assistance which includes cereals, pulses and fortified vegetable oil will help most vulnerable people in rural areas and the US assistance will help close to 230 000 of the 265 000 people targeted by WFP over the coming months.
“The assistance we are acknowledging today, which includes cereals, pulses and fortified vegetable oil, is an important contribution to help the most vulnerable people in rural areas to meet their nutritional needs. The US assistance will cover close to 230 000 of the 265 000 targeted by WFP people over the coming months,” she said.
She added that each person will receive 8.5kg of grains, 1.7kg of pulses and 0.6kg of oil during each distribution free of charge.
USAID mission director Janean Davis added that the United States’ assistance will be providing a monthly food basket for 230 000 people in the drought-prone districts of Mwenezi Mamgwe, Chivi and Buhera during the first quarter since it is the peak of this year’s lean season.
Davis also said some of the commodities were sourced from local companies such as ZimGold who got the produce from local farmers.
“For example some of the oil that will be distributed under the LSA program is from a local cooking oil manufacturer ZimGold.
“ZimGold has contracts with smallholder farmers in Manicaland province. Many of these farmers are beneficiaries of resilience building USAID-funded activities that have trained them in contract farming, price trends, marketing and good agronomic practices in sunflower production,” said Davis.
She added that 997 metric tons of locally grown white sorghum were procured through Peak Trading from Mbire, Rushinga and Muzarabani.
USAID has been working with WFP since 2000 in order to improve food security for millions of Zimbabweans.
