Southern Africa Needs More Aid As Record 45Mln. Face Severe Hunger - World Food Program

The international community should to increase support for 16 nations in southern Africa, where record 45 million people will be severely food insecure in the next six months, the UN World Food Program said in a press release on Thursday

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2019) The international community should to increase support for 16 nations in southern Africa, where record 45 million people will be severely food insecure in the next six months, the UN World Food Program said in a press release on Thursday.

"A record 45 million people across the 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) will be severely food insecure in the next six months," the release said. "The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Program (WFP) are calling for urgent funding to avert a major hunger crisis."

The humanitarian situation in southern Africa has reached a critical point as a result of persistent droughts, cyclones and flooding that have disrupted the region's harvests and agriculture production, the release said.

In addition, rising food prices, mass losses of livestock, lack of jobs have exacerbated the situation, the release said.

In nine of the 16 countries - Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar, Malawi, Namibia, Eswatini and Lesotho - more than 11 million people now face an emergency level of food insecurity, the release noted.

To contain the emergency, the United Nations is scaling up its response to deliver assistance to the nine countries by mid-2020, the release said.

The assistance includes aid to farmers to boost production, adopt climate-smart agricultural approaches, better access credits and promote vaccination campaigns to prevent livestock disease, the release added.