FAO WARNS OF CONTINUING FOOD PROBLEMS IN MANY AREAS OF AFRICA DESPITE SOME RECENT GOOD HARVESTS
Press Release
FAO/3630
FAO WARNS OF CONTINUING FOOD PROBLEMS IN MANY AREAS OF AFRICA DESPITE SOME RECENT GOOD HARVESTS
19960126 FAO Head, in Talks with African Leaders, Seeks Ways to Reduce Africa's Food Aid Dependency as Food Aid Shipments Fall to Lowest Levels in 20 YearsNAIROBI, 22 January (FAO) -- With low stocks in the major donor countries pointing to a sharp decline in food aid availability, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today of a difficult year ahead for much of Africa, as FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf held wide-ranging talks with African leaders to discuss, among other issues, ways to raise Africa's self-sufficiency in food.
According to the FAO, food aid allocations to sub-Saharan Africa have dropped as world cereal supplies tighten. Shipments of food aid last year were at their lowest level for 20 years. With a further production decline anticipated this year and given the steep increase in world cereal prices, many of the 44 low-income food-deficit countries in Africa will be hard pressed to make up their food needs through imports, says the FAO.
This bleak picture emerges from the quarterly special report on the Food Supply Situation and Crop Prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa, by the FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System, issued in Nairobi today.
The FAO Director-General, on a visit to Kenya, said, "The struggle to develop Africa agriculturally and economically is a global necessity, because the world needs Africa as a full and active partner in the global economy. To achieve this, food security in Africa is essential. Over the past two years sub-Saharan Africa's food aid needs dropped to 70 per cent of the average for the previous five years, reflecting generally good harvest in 1994 and high opening stocks in 1994 and 1995 in some countries, notably South Africa and Zimbabwe. However, the continent's cereal production is estimated to have declined by 10 million metric tons in 1995.
"The sustainable development of African agriculture calls for a dual strategy, the development and more rational management of the continent's natural resources, and the widespread adoption of more productive techniques", Mr. Diouf said.
A World Food Summit, proposed by Mr. Diouf and endorsed by the FAO's governing conference, is scheduled to be held at FAO Headquarters in Rome in November, convening heads of State and government for a renewed commitment and
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a plan of action to eliminate hunger and take preventive measures against famine.
According to the FAO Africa report, it is unlikely that global food aid availability will recover to the high levels of the 1980s and early 1990s. Surplus stock holdings in the donor countries, which permitted generous food aid donations, were a result of interventionist policies in domestic and international cereals pricing and marketing. World cereal prices have climbed partly because of reductions in the amount of concessional food exports from the major temperate exporters, the report says.
The FAO provisionally estimates the total global availability of cereals food aid in 1994/1995 at 8.7 million tons, the lowest level since 1974, and an early FAO forecast suggests that food availability for 1995/1996 would fall even further from the previous year's level.
Notwithstanding the low food aid supply situation, food assistance is still urgently needed to avert a crisis in several countries of eastern Africa, the report says. It cites Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia, where a substantial part of the emergency food needs may be procured locally, as countries with notable food aid requirements. Food aid needs also remain high for Rwanda, and donors should make contingencies for a possible deterioration of the food situation in Burundi.
Despite the recent peace agreement, much of the population of Liberia, particulary recent returnees and the internally displaced, remains dependent on food aid. Only concerted action by the international community can avert a major food crisis in parts of war-torn Sierra Leone, according to the FAO.
As the "lean season" between harvests in southern Africa approaches, the report urges donors to expedite deliveries of food aid to southern Africa against the current needs. The report calls for continued support "to explore sustainable ways of increasing food production" in the low-income food-deficit countries of sub-Saharan Africa in view of the volatile world cereal market and tight supplies of food aid. The FAO has instituted a special programme to improve productivity and production in low-income food-deficit countries, including Kenya.
The 44 low-income food-deficit countries in Africa, comprising half of 88 such nations in the world, are: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Togo, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Low-income food-deficit countries are defined as those countries with a per capita income in the range of $1,395, which the World Bank uses for International Development Association lending, and a negative trade balance in cereals, averaged over the previous five years. Using this definition, there were 88 such countries in 1995.
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