From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Sep 23 2009 - 11:47:34 EDT
Drought, Global Financial Crisis Signal Hunger Alert, Budget Shortfall in
Kenya
By Howard Lesser
23 September 2009
As leaders begin gathering in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for Thursday's
opening of the G20 meeting of developed and emerging nations, the U.N. World
Food Programme (WFP) is calling attention to a funding shortfall in Kenya.
Sharply rising food prices and the world financial crisis are making it
necessary to reduce the daily rations of needy Kenyans by early next month
unless donors make up a $277-million funding shortfall in this downturn
economic year. WFP North America chief spokesperson Bettina Luescher warns
that such a deficit could leave some 3.8 million Kenyans malnourished and
searching for drought relief.
"Funding is down all over the world. We are making a really urgent appeal
to the world leaders this week to come up with money so we can feed the
hungry. We have an unprecedented situation worldwide. A billion people are
going hungry. But this year, we've received only about a third of the money
that we need to feed all the people that we at the World Food Program need
to bring help to," said Luescher.
For Kenya, WFP has only received eight percent, or $24 million of the $301
million anticipated for feeding close to four million in Kenya over the
next six months. Although some countries report progress in recovering from
one of the worst economic crises in decades, G20 leaders are said to be
proceeding cautiously with the generous pledges they have made in previous
years for funding projects and helping developing countries meet millennium
development goals (MDGs) by the year 2015.
In the case of Kenya, which has shouldered a heavy international burden of
caring for hundreds of thousands of displaced Somali civilians and other
East African refugees, U.N. food coordinators have played a prominent role
working with Nairobi officials to help the hungry. The WFP's Luescher says
making up the budget shortfall is simply a matter of political will.
"Last year, the world governments were so generous and enabled us to feed
more than 100-million people. This year, we have to give the urgent appeal
that we're in the middle of a perfect storm. You have this drought in
Kenya. You have the financial crisis. Laborers that have gone abroad are
not sending as much money back home to their families. So all of these
things are coming together to turn it into a real crisis," she observes.
As an example of the 100-to-120 percent rise in food costs over the past
year and the diminishing values food production is posing for Kenya's
population, Luescher cites the case of a rural goat herder.
"The sale of one goat in Kenya used to buy a 90 kilogram bag of maize. And
now, it takes four goats to get the same amount of maize. So what we are
seeing as people are selling their livestock, those livestock are not nearly
as valuable as they were in the past," she points out.
To counter rising rates of malnutrition, Luescher says the food agency is
working closely with Kenyan government officials. Both WFP and the
government are operating school meal programs to keep children in school,
promote take-home rations for their families, and discourage Kenya's rapidly
growing numbers of youth from abandoning their educational pursuits in order
to become breadwinners for their relatives.
Health issues have also arisen because of the drought, which has left
farmers with barren fields and caused grazing lands to be littered with the
carcasses of dead cattle. For Kenyan city dwellers also, Luescher says
soaring food costs are posing new hunger challenges for the urban poor.
Pittsburgh skyline
Pittsburgh skyline
"Compared to a few years ago, your bag of rice or maize is double what it
once was, but you live on an extremely tiny income of less than a dollar a
day. You simply cannot afford the food that's on the shelf. That is in a
sense a new phase of hunger, the urban poor. Traditionally we have often
dealt especially with the rural poor. But we're seeing more and more over
the last one or two years that the urban poor cannot cope with the situation
any more," she says.
In Pittsburgh this week, the WFP and other international agencies will try
to ensure that progress achieved over the past few years by developing
countries will not be reversed by the temporal strains of a food crisis, a
drought crisis, and a world financial crisis.
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