http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspxUpdated everydayen-gbFri, 20 Nov 2009 13:54:05 GMTBRAZZAVILLE Friday, November 20, 2009 (IRIN) - Renewed clashes in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have led to a further wave of refugees, leaving corpse-littered villages in the affected area deserted, say humanitarian officials.BRAZZAVILLE Friday, November 20, 2009 (IRIN) - Renewed clashes in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have led to a further wave of refugees, leaving corpse-littered villages in the affected area deserted, say humanitarian officials.

About 100 people are thought to have died in clashes over fishing rights in DRC’s South Ubangi district, which lies in Equateur province. Others are believed to have drowned while crossing the Ubangi river, which separates the two Congos.

"Today we have 30,600 displaced persons. We have had a massive influx since yesterday [19 November] because of a resumption in fighting," Rufin Mafouta, head of the NGO Médecins d’Afrique in Impfondo, the main town in the Republic of Congo’s (ROC) northern Likouala department, told IRIN.

Likouala is located about 800km north of the capital, Brazzaville.

"There was a week we had just 24,000 refugees. The number has quickly risen because of a resumption in fighting in towns and villages in the DRC," Mafouta said.

Conditions are harsh for the refugees.

"They are exposed to the bad weather,” Mafouta said. “The sanitary conditions remain worrying. We have recorded some cases of diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections and skin diseases among the children.”

“In Eboko, we carried out an evaluation and found there are a lot of unaccompanied children. They lost their parents,” he added. “There are also many pregnant women.”

An 18 November update by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Kinshasa said four children had died of diarrhoea in Eboko.

A recent interagency mission to the South Ubangi villages of Dongo, Tangala, Ozene and Kungu found Dongo deserted, with corpses still strewn in the streets, stated the OCHA report.

Houses, shops and other property were also burned. Congolese police deployed in the area are afraid for their health.

The refugees include members of the DRC’s navy, which patrols the Ubangi.

"We have been forced to flee with our families because we neither have weapons nor ammunition [to] protect ourselves," Wazaba Paluku, a sergeant, told IRIN in the ROC village of Dongou, where sailors had taken refuge in a police station.

About 70 percent of the refugees are women and children, 25 percent are young people, with the rest elderly persons, according to Boubacar Ben Diallo, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) crisis unit.

Hospitals reported receiving people with bullet and machete injuries.

DRC's ambassador to the ROC, Esther Kirongozi, said her government had recently set up a special commission to find a lasting solution to the crisis.

DRC authorities also launched an appeal for its citizens to return home. 

Aid agencies recently distributed about 15 tonnes of food and non-food items such as insecticide-treated bed nets, cooking pots, water jerry cans and blankets to the refugees in Betou, Boyele, Dongo and Impfondo following a joint UN and ROC ministry evaluation mission.

“The [donation] is inadequate but we have been forced to distribute [it], in the meantime [awaiting] other help,” noted UNHCR's Diallo.

According to the police, some of the refugees are making their way back to their DRC villages across Ubangi River to harvest their crops before crossing back to the ROC.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87136BANGKOK Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN has warned of serious health risks and food security problems over a lack of funding to assist the Philippines after the country was hit by three major storms and typhoons.BANGKOK Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN has warned of serious health risks and food security problems over a lack of funding to assist the Philippines after the country was hit by three major storms and typhoons.

“The emergency response is being hampered by low levels of funding, particularly in areas such as agriculture, protection, shelter and education of children,” Jacqueline Badcock, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Philippines, said in a statement on 18 November.

The UN launched a flash appeal for US$74 million in Manila on 7 October after tropical storm Ketsana flooded the nation’s capital and outlying regions in late September.

Before the country could recover, Typhoon Parma hit on 3 October, and then Typhoon Mirinae on 31 October, bringing widespread damage and misery. The additional devastation, which has affected 10 million people, led to a revised appeal (see: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EDIS-7XUQ73?OpenDocument) this week of $143.7 million from humanitarian agencies.

Donors have only handed over $26 million in funding to date – about 36 percent of the original $74 million requested, or 18.6 percent of the revised $143.7 million, according to the UN.

If funding levels do not increase substantially, about 1.7 million people living in or displaced from areas that are still flooded face serious health and protection risks, warned Badcock’s office.

Some 350,000 people may not be able to return to or rebuild their homes and more than one million children may not be able to resume their education, it said.

The disasters severely affected the critical planting season in Northern Luzon, the country’s main agricultural region, and preliminary assessments cited in the revised appeal showed some 100,000-120,000 farming households had lost 100 percent of their production and assets.

“The November planting season might be missed, which has longer-term implications for food security,” the statement added.

In a separate interview, Badcock told IRIN that donors had been waiting for more information about the scale of damage caused, and that the first appeal had not fully assessed the extent of the devastation.

“The extent of the appeal and the damage was not really well understood by everybody until all the assessments were done,” she said.

“This revised [appeal] has a lot more analysis … we hope it will provide more clarity and confidence to the donors that these are real needs."

Early recovery

The total revised amount of $143,774,080 will cover the immediate and early recovery needs of 4.2 million people, including more than 520,000 children under the age of five. This is twice the population covered under the original appeal.

The revised appeal is planned to run until March 2010 and is being presented on 18 November to donors and the government in Manila, UN officials said.

“The urgent needs remain the people who live in evacuation centres, who need continuing assistance with food and shelter,” said Badcock.

“Then there are farms where the water is going down. We need to get those farmers rehabilitated and planting out for the next season, and their families need food for the next three months because they lost their harvest,” she said.

“Water and sanitation remain critical, particularly in the flooded areas, where there are huge Filariasis [http://www.who.int/topics/filariasis/en/] and Dengue [http://www.who.int/topics/dengue/en/] concerns.”

Early recovery efforts are needed to assist people in restoring their livelihoods, as well as fully restoring schools that are damaged or being used as evacuation centres, she said.

The appeal is being made by UN agencies, NGOs, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87094JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (IRIN) - Good quality food aid can save billions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on saving lives, says a major report from the World Bank, one of two new studies that uncover some unsettling facts about food aid and malnutrition. JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (IRIN) - Good quality food aid can save billions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on saving lives, says a major report from the World Bank, one of two new studies that uncover some unsettling facts about food aid and malnutrition.

Spending US$200 to treat a severely malnourished child can save $1,351 in treating nutrition-related illnesses, said the report, Scaling up Intervention: What will it cost? which argued that "The cost of not intervening ... is much higher. The benefits from iron fortification of staples and salt iodization alone are estimated at $7.2 billion per year."

The 2007/2008 food price crisis, followed by one of the worst economic recessions in recent times, has revived the humanitarian aid world's interest in malnutrition, especially in the quality of food aid being dispensed.

The other report, Malnutrition: how much is being spent? by international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), agreed with the World Bank's conclusion in that food aid abysmally fails to meet nutrition requirements.

Food aid does not necessarily focus on the "window of opportunity" from pregnancy until a child turns two, when children and women are most vulnerable, said Meera Shekar, a leading health and nutrition specialist at the World Bank and co-author of its report.

"Rarely does the food aid target the most vulnerable groups: children under five, pregnant women and lactating mothers," said Stéphane Doyon, a co-author of the MSF report.

Donors spent very little on nutrition - barely 1.7 percent of development and emergency food aid between 2004 and 2007 actually addressed malnutrition, said MSF.

Doyon said their analysis suggested that donors should maximise the value of funding by ceasing in-kind donations and provide cash instead, allowing aid agencies to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country. However, donor countries in the European Union (EU) and Canada, which had recently moved to provide cash, were not spending enough on nutrition.

The World Bank report noted that addressing malnutrition in the 36 countries where 90 percent of the world's most malnourished children live would be relatively cheap - only $11.8 billion to step up 13 proven nutrition interventions from current coverage to 100 percent of the target population.

Scaling up these programmes which include providing fortified food, deworming tablets and promoting breastfeeding could save the lives of more than 1.1 million children younger than five in these countries, where an estimated eight million children die of malnutrition-related causes every year.

The World Bank report takes a comprehensive look at the nuts and bolts of nutrition interventions like providing micronutrient-fortified foods, and not only details how much each intervention should be stepped up, but also its impact in monetary value.

Children who received fortified complementary food before they were three years old grew up to be more economically productive, said the World Bank study, citing an investigation led by John Hoddinott, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, in 2008.

The World Bank study represented "A careful attempt to assess what resources are needed to put a significant dent in malnutrition around the world ... [the] striking feature of these estimates is, in fact, how small these financial requirements are," Hoddinott told IRIN.

"For a fraction of the amount of money spent on bailing out financial institutions, governments around the world could significantly reduce micronutrient deficiencies and dramatically reduce the incidence of stunting."

The global economic slowdown, combined with high food prices, has added some 100 million people around the world to those already living in chronic hunger and poverty in 2008, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Between 3.5 million and 5 million children under five years of age die every year from malnutrition-related illnesses, accounting for 11 percent of the global burden of disease, according to the reports.

The MSF study said about 40 percent of nutrition funding flows were allocated to sub-Saharan Africa, where the main recipient countries included Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Niger, Kenya, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo; almost 18 percent of the funds went to South and Central Asia; the remainder was "unspecified".

The nuts and bolts

Of the $11.8 billion the World Bank said was needed to address malnutrition in the 36 countries, $1.5 billion could be contributed by wealthier households in the beneficiary countries to purchase iodized salt and fortified staple foods, such as flour, which were available locally.

The World Bank study found that undernutrition was surprisingly high, even among the wealthiest populations. "For example, in India, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia, respectively 20, 30, and 37 percent of children under the age of five in the highest-income quintiles are underweight."

The remaining $10.3 billion could buy vitamin A supplements, iron-folic acid tablets, and staple foods fortified with iron, among others, for several million children and mothers.

Besides rescuing lives, these interventions could save an estimated 30 million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) or years lost to premature death and disability, as well as the money needed to treat patients and provide care.

Severe acute malnutrition could be halved from the current prevalence of 19 million; an estimated 138,000 of the current 276,000 annual deaths would be averted by preventive measures; a further 50,000 deaths would be averted by treating severe acute malnutrition.

The World Bank study recommended scaling up interventions in two phases: expanding the distribution of micronutrients, and educating people about eating healthy food in Phase 1; providing complementary or therapeutic foods to prevent and treat moderate malnutrition in children younger than two, and spending on resource-intensive interventions to treat severe malnutrition in Phase 2.

However, MSF's Doyon pointed out that prevention and treatment had to run concurrently. "What's the point in educating people about micronutrient interventions when they will have to wait to access them?"

What about the money?

The World Bank study suggested that the allocation of funds in recipient countries would be made more efficient by filling the gaps in costed and agreed-upon national strategies, and noted that this perception was growing.

In a complementing move, several developed countries, including those in the EU, have "either developed new nutrition strategies or position papers on food security, or seem poised to do so".

"It's about changing the mindset from providing food aid to assistance, keeping the people's needs in mind," said Doyon.

The authors of the World Bank report were upbeat over the recent announcement by the G8 group of industrialised countries in L'Aquila, Italy, that an additional $20 billion over three years would be spent on food security.

There is also a possibility that Canada will pursue this agenda when the G8 meets next, in 2010, by moving "from food security to nutrition security", offering "yet another opportunity for financing the nutrition scale-up".

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87106HARADH Monday, November 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Aid workers at al-Mazraq camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Haradh District, Hajjah Governorate, northernYemen, say more and more children are arriving at the camp in a state of moderate or severe malnourishment.HARADH Monday, November 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Aid workers at al-Mazraq camp [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87005] for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Haradh District, Hajjah Governorate, northernYemen, say more and more children are arriving at the camp in a state of moderate or severe malnourishment.

"During our tent visits, we found that an average family has a severely or moderately malnourished child," said Sarah Yahya, a volunteer working with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on identifying malnourished children.

Khalid Shaibani from the UNICEF-run therapeutic feeding centre (TFC) at the camp told IRIN the number of malnourished children was increasing by the day as new IDP families arrived.

"Two babies died from malnutrition complications just a few days after their families secured shelter in the camp. Another 10 were referred to a hospital in Haradh town, 40km west of the camp," he said.

Of the 3,000 under fives targeted by a recent screening in the camp, 667 cases (22 percent) were severely malnourished and 200 (6.67 percent) moderately malnourished, according to Shaibani.

In September UNICEF screened about 1,200 under-five IDP children in the camp and found 7 percent severely malnourished. [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86423]

Ali Mahdi is one of the parents who brought his two young children to the TFC.

"Faris's arms and legs are getting thinner and thinner by the day. No food remains in his stomach for more than 10 minutes due to very bad diarrhoea and vomiting. He hardly stands up or sits down and spends most of the time lying on his back," said the father of the four-year-old boy.

Mahdi, his wife and their six children fled their home in the Dhafir District, Saada Governorate, to the Saudi border in mid-August because of fighting between government troops and Houthi-led insurgents. Whilst taking refuge there, they had very limited access to food, Mahdi’s wife, Khudhra, told IRIN.

After a Saudi army operation against Houthi insurgents in the border area in early November, the family was forced, along with hundreds of others, to flee again. [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86977]

Chronic malnourishment

Rajia Ahmed Sharhan, a nutrition officer with UNICEF in Sanaa, said moderate malnourishment is not very visible.

“Probably malnourishment was there among some children before the displacement occurred, but was not very visible. When the families had to flee and had problems with accessing proper and nutritious food for weeks, those moderate cases became severe,” she said.

"We cannot say that the war situation is the only source of the problem because mothers neglect their babies and don't know how to feed them. Several cases had shown chronic malnutrition," said UNICEF volunteer Yahya.

Tent visits to increase mothers' awareness on how to care for their babies, as well as to promote breastfeeding, revealed that many mothers often gave their babies tea with bread in the morning and at night, which can lead to anaemia and malnutrition, Yahya said, adding: "If water is given in lieu of tea, symptoms will be milder.”

"Even worse, mothers with newborns come to us and ask for milk powder, preferring it to breastfeeding. They aren't aware of the benefits of breastfeeding for their babies," Yahya said.

According to the World Health Organization, only 11.5 percent of mothers in Yemen exclusively breastfeed their babies until they are six months old. [http://www.who.int/nutrition/databases/infantfeeding/countries/yem.pdf]

Plumpy’Nut treatment

TFC provides different types of therapeutic formula to affected children, depending on how serious the case is, TFC's Shaibani said. "Acute moderate cases get two sacks of Plumpy’Nut [http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=72897] a day while severe cases with serious complications are given concentrated proteins and vitamins through nasogastric tubes in the camp's clinic."

He said 75-percent fat milk is given to infants with oedema (an abnormal accumulation of fluid beneath the skin or in one or more cavities of the body), usually caused by malnourishment complications. "If no improvement is noticed, the centre refers critical cases to the Haradh-based hospital or to Sabin Hospital in Sanaa."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87062TEL AVIV Sunday, November 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Israel’s Ministry of Defence has accepted agriculture minister Shalom Simchon’s request to transfer some 7,500 calves into Gaza for Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday on around 27 November this year and symbolised by the slaughtering of animals to distribute meat to the poor.TEL AVIV Sunday, November 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Israel’s Ministry of Defence has accepted agriculture minister Shalom Simchon’s request to transfer some 7,500 calves into Gaza for Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday on around 27 November this year and symbolised by the slaughtering of animals to distribute meat to the poor.

''This is a humanitarian gesture but it will also stop the smuggling of cattle into Gaza from Egypt which might be infected with diseases that will infect Israeli herds,” Simchon said.

Beef is considered a luxury by Israel's defence ministry and therefore is not allowed into Gaza on a regular basis under the sanctions Israel has imposed on the Strip. Israeli cattle farmers, who reared all the calves and stand to benefit financially from the transfer, lobbied the Israeli government to allow it.

NGO Gisha, a legal centre for freedom of movement, has filed a petition under the freedom of information act claiming that a lack of public oversight raises questions of impropriety in the transfer of goods to Gaza. The petition was filed after six months of attempts to obtain information relating to the entry of food and goods into Gaza.

td/edhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87043BANGKOK Friday, November 13, 2009 (IRIN) - A recent spate of natural disasters in Asia has further underscored the importance of breastfeeding during emergencies, with a need for additional policies to support this.BANGKOK Friday, November 13, 2009 (IRIN) -  A recent spate of natural disasters in Asia has further underscored the importance of breastfeeding during emergencies, with a need for additional policies to support this.
 
Hundreds of thousands were displaced and forced into evacuation shelters following a series of deadly typhoons in the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, and an earthquake in Indonesia in the past two months.
 
But according to experts, during such disasters, support for mothers to breastfeed is often overlooked and not given the priority it needs, despite its life-saving function.
 
Besides raising awareness of the importance of breastfeeding, aid organizations need to have policies on infant feeding, they say.

“You have to have a strong policy in place, and make sure all the actors and all the staff in that organization know about this policy,” Anna Winoto, a nutrition specialist with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Indonesia, told IRIN.
 
In emergency situations, poor water and sanitation and security situations contribute to a heightened risk of disease among children, who are vulnerable to diarrhoea, malnutrition and pneumonia.
 
Practices such as using infant formula milk, when water may be contaminated and feeding bottles cannot be sterilized, contributes to the risk and has been shown to lead to an increase in diarrhoeal disease in infants.
 
“Breastfeeding is actually even more crucial under emergency conditions because children under five, and infants in particular, are at an increased risk of infection, disease and malnutrition,” Winoto said.
 
“Breastfeeding should be seen as a life-saving intervention,” she said.
 
In an emergency situation, establishing private spaces for mothers and infants, one-to-one counselling and mother-to-mother support is needed to encourage breastfeeding, say UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO).
 
“As part of emergency preparedness, hospitals and other healthcare services should have trained health workers who can help mothers establish breastfeeding and overcome difficulties,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan in a statement to mark World Breastfeeding Week in August.
 
Both UNICEF and WHO advocate exclusive breastfeeding for children up to six months of age, and continued breastfeeding and complementary feeding until age two.
 
Dangerous donations
 
But one obstacle to breastfeeding during emergencies is unsolicited or uncontrolled donations of breast-milk substitutes, which undermine breastfeeding, according to UNICEF and WHO.

Following a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in West Sumatra on 30 September, UNICEF Indonesia, worked with the country’s Health Ministry, and contacted local and national radio stations to broadcast requests to stop milk-substitute donations.
 
“It’s a huge problem, and the problem lies in the lack of knowledge among the donors on the potential harm,” said Winoto.
 
Meanwhile, coordination in emergencies also remains a challenge, with little capacity to locate only those children who truly need infant formula and not disrupt breastfeeding practices, she said.
 
“In our experience, it’s gotten better but it’s still a huge challenge because there are so many actors when an emergency comes, and so many donations,” she said.
 
Helping with trauma
 
Besides the health benefits, breastfeeding advocates underline the psycho-social benefit of maintaining the activity during an emergency, which is traumatic for babies and young children, experts say.
 
“In an emergency, keeping the baby on the breast is not only about nutrition, it is giving the child that security and closeness when it is scared,” Elvira Henares-Esguerra, director of the Philippine NGO Children for Breastfeeding, [http://breastfeedingphilippines.com/cfb.html] told IRIN.
 
In the aftermath of Typhoon Ketsana, which caused massive flooding in the Philippines in September, Henares-Esguerra and a handful of breastfeeding mothers with their children visited an evacuation centre.
 
They demonstrated breastfeeding practices, and encouraged displaced mothers to do the same.
 
“We discovered that infant formula was being given out by the government at evacuation centres,” said Henares-Esguerra.
 
“We wanted to encourage the mothers to breastfeed,” she said.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87020DUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.DUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November [http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak340e/ak340e00.htm], published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.

The report highlights a contradiction: world cereal production is at its second-highest level ever, yet food prices remain very high. It identifies 77 countries that are both low-income and food deficit.

In East Africa, cereal prices range from 68 percent to 177 percent over the 2007 numbers. In southern Africa, prices are 58-200 percent higher than in 2007, and in most of Asia prices are up 40-70 percent. Since most low-income food deficit countries are food importers, they lose far more from high prices than they gain from steady crop production.

Hunger, in most cases, is caused by lack of money rather than a shortage of food production, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). [http://www.wfp.org/hunger/causes] In 2008 the number of undernourished people in the world increased by 40 million, despite record harvests. [http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/8836/icode/]

The new FAO report suggests that 2009 is likely to see a similar increase in hunger.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87006JOHANNESBURG Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Did you know that agriculture contributed 42 percent of Nigeria's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008, more than double the 20 percent of revenue that oil brought into the national coffers? JOHANNESBURG Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Did you know that agriculture contributed 42 percent of Nigeria's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008, more than double the 20 percent of revenue that oil brought into the national coffers?

A programme to boost food security, launched in 2001, helped Nigeria's rain-dependant small-scale farmers with irrigation and access to credit and marketing services, said a new UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report taking an in-depth look at 16 countries that have made some headway in reducing the number of hungry people.

Barbara Huddleston, an FAO food security expert, said the study was produced as part of the effort to "stimulate interest in investing in smallholders, asking countries and donors to make a commitment in real people" ahead of the World Food security Summit in Rome, Italy, next week.

Two reports published this week draw attention to agriculture with a caseload of good news stories on improving food security. The FAO report, Pathways to Success, looks at policy initiatives that have improved food security, and new measures taken in the wake of last year's global recession.

The US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) uses its book, MillionsFed, to look at a mix of food security success stories over a period of years, many of which were driven by NGOs and communities.

In 1990 an initiative driven by Helen Keller International, which works to prevent blindness and reduce malnutrition, and local organizations in Bangladesh encouraged 1,000 households to plant vegetables rich in vitamin A to address a deficiency in this micronutrient, which can cause night blindness: at that time 30,000 children in the South Asian country were going blind each year.

The programme, eventually driven by 70 local NGOs and the government, grew to cover 870,000 households across the country by 2003, and helped improve the food security of nearly five million people - almost four percent of the population.

There is also the IFPRI story of farmers on Burkina Faso's central plateau who have been sowing crops in planting pits and built contour bunds - rows of stones piled up along the contours of the land to capture rainwater runoff and prevent soil erosion - and have produced an additional 80,000 tonnes of food per year.

"These are examples of people choosing to step out of their comfort zones and risk innovation; these people did not wait for external agencies to step in," said Rajul Pandya-Lorch, co-editor of MillionsFed. "We want to highlight the importance of creating the space to allow people to take risks and experiment."

The case studies underline that there is "no single, simple solution to helping farmers be more productive", said Prabhu Pingali, deputy director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which commissioned MillionsFed.

"A comprehensive approach is needed - from investing in improved seeds and healthy soil to supporting effective farm management practices and expanding small farmers' access to markets," he said.

Such efforts pay off with investment in science and technology - improved seeds, fertilizers and pesticides - hallmarks of the "green revolution" that turned around food production in Asia from 1965 to 1990.

Policy decisions like liberalizing agricultural markets, giving land-rights to farmers, investing in rural infrastructure and agricultural extension services also help. The FAO report points out that 84 percent of Vietnam's paddy fields are irrigated, so rice farmers no longer have to depend on the rain.

"In just five years, from 1993 to 1998, the share of people living in poverty fell by 21 percent [in Vietnam]," noted IFPRI, which has also devoted a chapter to land reforms in Vietnam.

The IFPRI and FAO initiatives have many examples of useful ideas to inspire communities and governments. And there is hope - at least 31 out of 79 countries monitored by FAO have registered a significant decline in the number of undernourished people since the early 1990s.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87014SANAA Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Yemen’s Agriculture Ministry is boosting efforts to combat the livestock disease screw worm, which is threatening the livelihoods of rural inhabitants, particularly in coastal and central regions, according to ministry officials.SANAA Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Yemen’s Agriculture Ministry is boosting efforts to combat the livestock disease screw worm, which is threatening the livelihoods of rural inhabitants, particularly in coastal and central regions, according to ministry officials.

"Since 1 November, we have dispatched dozens of vets to rural areas in the governorates of Hodeida, Hajjah, Mahwit, Taiz, Ibb, Dhamar and Raima to treat thousands of infected animals and increase awareness among pastoralists on how to protect livestock," Mansoor al-Qadasi, the government's chief vet, told IRIN on 7 November.

"Falling temperatures during winter in coastal and central-southern areas, coupled with unhealthy animal shelters, encourage the rapid spread of screw worm, putting animal lives at risk," he said.

According to Agriculture Ministry vet Hani Merai, some 7,666 cows, sheep, goats and camels have been treated and over 50,000 vaccinated against the disease in the seven governorates over the past month. "Four hundred and sixty-nine villages were covered by the programme and 4,053 animal shelters were sprayed or cleaned in the same period," he said.

Merai said the ministry had distributed over 3,600 leaflets in the most affected areas in Taiz and Ibb governorates, and more would be distributed in other governorates in the next couple of months.

Taiz-based epidemic surveillance and control official Nizar Faisal said increasing the awareness of pastoralists was the best way to reduce the risk of another screw worm outbreak.

"It is difficult to eliminate the epidemic but early interventions can keep deaths to a minimum… Since the epidemic first broke out in 2007, more than 22,000 animals have been infected," Faisal said.

The screw worm fly lays its eggs in a cut or open wound on a warm-blooded animal. Maggots then feast off the living flesh, and can kill the animal if the wound is not cleaned and treated with insecticide in time.

FAO, IAEA involvement

The Agriculture Ministry initiative is supported by international organizations such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

"Earlier this year, FAO provided us with pesticides while IAEA offered the necessary equipment and trained staff at the Central Veterinarian Laboratory on how to deal with infected animals," chief vet al-Qadasi said. "But the programme's budget is limited… We still need more funds from international and local donors to increase the drive against screw worm."

Al-Qadasi said livestock was the main source of income for 75 percent of Yemen's rural population (estimated to be 16 million).

According to Anwar Abdullah, a Taiz local council member, a shepherd earns YR 400 (US$2) a day for grazing 50-100 sheep or goats from 8am until 5pm, but with fewer animals to graze, their incomes were being hit.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86973JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Plumpy'nut, a widely distributed ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), has revolutionized the treatment of acute malnutrition, but its 12-year dominance is being challenged by a newcomer. JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Plumpy'nut, a widely distributed ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), has revolutionized the treatment of acute malnutrition, but its 12-year dominance is being challenged by a newcomer.

The patents for Plumpy'nut - a blend of peanuts, sugar, milk powder, oil, vitamins and minerals - are owned by Nutriset, a French family-run business, and the Institute of Research for Development, a French public research institute.

Now an American family-owned company, Tabatchnick Fine Foods, is turning the heat up in the blended food kitchen by applying for a patent for their RUTF in the US - where the Plumpy'nut patent is registered - to treat malnutrition in children and boost women's immune systems.

Tabatchnick hopes to open up the market with his patent challenge and has started manufacturing an RUTF that is being evaluated by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the world's largest buyer of RUTF and Plumpy'nut.

Manufacturers of similar pastes have been wary of challenging Nutriset. "The patents are so broad that if you add one micronutrient into a jar of Nutella [a widely distributed brand of nut pastes] it will fall within the patent," said Stéphane Doyon, leader of the Nutrition Team at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the international medical charity.

The US patent describes Nutriset's RUTF as a "complete food or nutritional supplement" comprising "a mixture of food-grade products, said mixture being coated with at least one lipid-rich substance optionally derived partly from oleaginous seeds".

The mixture could be in the form of "powder, particles or granules", the seeds could be "peanuts, cocoa beans, almonds, coconuts or pistachio nuts, or they can consist of a mixture of various fats of vegetable origin".

The protein source in the RUTF could be skimmed milk, powdered yoghurt or whey, and/or at least one product which provides carbohydrates, particularly carbohydrate bulking agents, sucrose, glucose, fructose, skimmed milk, whey, or flour made of maize, wheat, millet, oats, rice, cassava or potato starch", according to the patent documents.

Plumpy'nut was the first RUTF to be developed and is regarded as the industry standard. Several similar pastes have been developed but can only be sold in countries where the Plumpy'nut patents are not registered.

"Because Plumpy'nut is a brand name, it is the most popular," said an aid agency worker. "It is like Coke - people still prefer it, even if you have other similar drinks."

Two is a crowd too

Nutriset has attempted to broaden the scope of its two patents claim industry insiders, who also say the company has been "very vigilant" in ensuring that its patents are respected; manufacturers of peanut-based RUTFs have received legal letters.

"You have to keep reminding people [by sending letters]," said Nutriset spokesman Remi Vallet. "We are not trying to protect any monopoly - there is no monopoly there are other RUTF manufacturers in the market."

In Kenya, where the Plumpy'nut patents are registered, Nutriset has threatened legal action against Compact, an Indian and Norwegian manufacturer, for storing 25 metric tons of its RUTF, eeZeePaste, which it intended to supply to Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Our patent lawyers are studying the letter [from Nutriset] at the moment. I think they are stretching the interpretation of their patents," said Arne Andreassen, managing director of Compact, who pointed out that conflict-torn Somalia does not have adequate storage facilities.

Vallet said Nutriset was flexible where products were for humanitarian interventions. "We are willing to talk to Compact if they can show the supply was meant for Somalia. We allowed Diva [a South African RUTF manufacturer] to supply a UNICEF programme in Kenya, and are now in talks with them to enter into an arrangement with us."

Nutriset patents are registered in the European Union, the US and Canada, as well as in 16 francophone members of the African Intellectual Property Organization and 16 members of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization in Eastern and Southern Africa.

In countries where Nutriset patents are registered, companies granted a manufacturing license are allowed to make, store, sell or use products similar to Plumpy'nut, but may not use the brand name. A network of Nutriset franchise-holders covers Niger, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Tanzania Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Dominican Republic, India and USA.

Nutriset patents are not registered in India, South Africa and Haiti, which have large numbers of malnourished children, and the company said competitors were free to invest in research and development of other RUTF products that would not fall within the scope of its patents.

Ben Tabatchnick, head of the family business, said his product was still in the development phase, but the patent would be "open-source", which would allow other producers to replicate his recipe.

His company "was trying to take the fear out of other producers from producing RUTF and keeping up with demand; no one producer can supply (even with licensed franchises) the world demand for RUTF and RUSF [ready-to-use supplementary foods]", he commented. "By allowing others free access (with proper oversight by UNICEF and MSF), this can and will be accomplished."

MSF's Doyon said patents for humanitarian products should be "filed only on an exceptional basis and ... licensing agreements should be offered to third parties on flexible terms and conditions, so as to ensure the widest possible availability of nutritional products of a humanitarian nature. We have been saying [this] to Nutriset ... [but] their reaction to Compact seems to say that they do not agree."

All the nuts in one jar

According to a study commissioned by UNICEF, Nutriset supplies the bulk of its product from France and the UN agency is the world's largest buyer of Plumpy'nut, which accounts for 89 percent of its RUTF procurement every year.

The cost and difficulty of exporting Plumpy'nut from France could be significant. In 2008 most of UNICEF's emergency supplies to Ethiopia had been air-freighted - 39 percent of the cost - whereas a local supplier in Kenya could have decreased transportation costs by around $80,000 per year and reduced overall supply-chain delay from eight weeks to one week.

[However] "It does not always work out cheaper to buy in the south," than to ship RUTF from Europe said Steve Jarrett, principal advisor in UNICEF's supply division. The study noted that there were "considerable risks in having a vital product like RUTF produced only by one dominant world supplier".

Nutriset has taken a number of precautions to protect the production process, including security staff, and the ability to rapidly shift staff and equipment to scale up production outside of France, including in the US.

But if Nutriset's manufacturing facility were to "go off-line for any reason — be it mechanical failure, worker strike, natural disaster, or a host of other reasons — the ramifications could effectively halt the entire RUTF supply chain for all of Nutriset's customers", the study commented.

A single global producer "limits the extent to which the supply chain includes surge capacity"; in the face of a complex emergency Nutriset would be forced to prioritize orders and reduce its ability to meet needs elsewhere. The study also suggested that multi-sourcing could bring down costs.

Jarrett said UNICEF was in favour of encouraging the production of RUTFs in beneficiary countries because this would help to "advocate its use - it is easier to get a buy-in from countries."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86979NAIROBI Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - When the working members of a household die from HIV-related illnesses in northern Tanzania, older dependants have to work longer hours to cope financially, according to recently published World Bank study.NAIROBI Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - When the working members of a household die from HIV-related illnesses in northern Tanzania, older dependants have to work longer hours to cope financially, according to recently published World Bank study.

"Adult death is associated with increased farm hours ... Older women who suffer the loss of a co-resident member among their baseline household are working five hours more each week," the study found.

More than 1,000 men and women older than 50 were surveyed over a 13-year period between 1991 and 2004 in the Kagera region. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2009/09/02/000158349_20090902155306/Rendered/PDF/WPS5037.pdf.

Older adults who had relied on remittances and other in-kind support from their adult children were left with the burden of caring not only for themselves but also their orphaned grandchildren.

"Grandparents who should be in retirement are forced to start working and parenting again, often when they are not in the best physical condition," said Wamuyu Manyara, portfolio manager at the Africa Regional Development Centre of HelpAge International http://www.helpage.org. "An older woman with thinning bones should really not be forced to return to the field and farm."

The study noted that the shocks caused by the death of adult children were primarily felt by older people living with the children when they died. Women had less secure access to land and assets than men, but shouldered most of the labour after their children died, and also felt the shocks more than men. Owning more assets, such as land and animals, could act as a buffer.

"Policies which help ensure complete markets for livestock and other forms of assets, provide asset accumulation, and preserve women's rights to property may help mitigate the long-run negative impact of prime-age [15-50 years] deaths," the report said.

Little support

The elderly were often marginalised by state welfare programmes. "Older people are not organised enough to advocate for their needs, and they wind up being grouped in government departments with either children or people with disabilities - both these groups have powerful lobbies that drown out the needs of older people," said HelpAge's Manyara.

"In Kenya we are currently in the process of identifying community spokespeople to give them a public voice, but because many of them can't speak English or are illiterate, they are not always willing to take on the challenge."

Several African governments were doing more to include older people in social welfare programmes, particularly older carers. "There is now an appreciation of the magnitude of the problem, and there are some programmes catering for older people's economic needs," Manyara noted.

"Old-age pensions and child-care grants provided to older South Africans, and cash transfer programmes for older Kenyans, are practical examples of the types of programmes that need to be rolled out across the region ... [but the need] is still much higher than the numbers being catered for."

Research by the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, in five African countries found that between 40 percent and 60 percent of all orphans in Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe were being cared for by grandparents, particularly grandmothers.

Need for targeted programming

"Some of these older people can still work - they have energy and should be supported in their work with income-generating projects," Manyara suggested. "The conditions for accessing microfinance are usually so rigid that older people do not qualify; something should be done to encourage older people still able to work to access these funds."

Kavutha Mutuvi, HelpAge International's regional advocacy coordinator, said older people needed secure incomes. "There should be social pensions ... especially for those who are caring for households in their old age," she said.

Yet the bureaucratic hurdles in accessing support were considerable. "When a grandmother wants to claim a foster care grant, she may be asked for death certificates for her children or birth certificates of the grandchildren," Mutuvi pointed out.

"She may not have or have access to this documentation, but the fact that she is their grandmother can easily be verified by consulting community leaders - there should be a way to do away with much of the red tape they go through to claim support."

Older people also needed psychosocial assistance when their children died and they were left to raise the grandchildren. "We have tried to form support groups, which are more successful among women than men, but when it comes to helping grandparents with parenting skills, there is a definite need ... because they do come to us with questions when kids, for instance, want to know about sexuality," Mutuvi said.

The role of older people should be acknowledged when drawing up national home-based care policies and programmes, she said, by providing meaningful support such as physical help from community workers.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86984HARARE Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - An acute shortage of labourers on Zimbabwe's newly resettled farms, combined with the farmers' inability to raise loans from financial institutions to purchase agricultural inputs, and money owed to them by the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), do not bode well for food security.HARARE Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - An acute shortage of labourers on Zimbabwe's newly resettled farms, combined with the farmers' inability to raise loans from financial institutions to purchase agricultural inputs, and money owed to them by the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), do not bode well for food insecurity.

"The majority of our members have indicated that their farming activities have been severely affected by the shortage of manpower to use on the farms. We are poorly prepared, and our hands as farmers are tied because we don't have the money to keep the farm workers," said Denford Chimbwanda, president of the Grain and Cereal Producers Association (GCPA).

Chimbwanda told IRIN that although banks have finally agreed to provide loans, with the government's offer letters on the land as collateral, the slow pace of approving loans was not taking into account the window period of the main planting season.

Offer letters, or 99-year leases, have been issued to farmers settled on land redistributed from white-owned commercial farms to landless blacks in President Robert Mugabe's fast-track land reform programme, which began in 2000. Banks have only recently started accepting the offer letters as collateral for loans.

Renson Gasela, an agricultural analyst and the secretary for agriculture in the breakaway faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Arthur Mutambara, told IRIN that many farmers who had sold their previous harvest to the GMB - the sole grain purchaser in Zimbabwe - were still awaiting payment, further turning the screws on their cash flow.

"Farm workers are deciding that enough is enough. I am aware that some farmers have managed to keep some of their workers, on the promise that once they get paid by the GMB they will settle the wage arrears, but these promises have gone for too long, forcing them [workers] to look for other sources of income," he said.

In some cases wages had not been paid for three months, "and this has led to frustration among the employees, who, together with their families, need to subsist on a daily basis," Gasela said.

In the first quarter of 2009 nearly seven million Zimbabweans depended on food aid, but a relatively successful harvest of 1.14 million metric tons of maize, the staple food, in June 2009 - a two-fold increase on the previous year - brought optimism that the country was turning the corner on its food insecurity.

"Moving across the country, you cannot believe that we are already in the main farming season. Only a privileged few have managed to till their land, using tractors and the diesel that they managed to buy, but the story is different with the majority of farmers," Gasela said.

"It is easy to notice the absence of farm workers, who, in the past, would be seen busy in the fields at this time of the year. Instead, they can be found by the roadside selling firewood, or fish from nearby dams," he commented.

Tapiwa Zivira, spokesperson for the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union (GAPWUZ), told IRIN that labourers were "fleeing" farms because wages were not being paid.

"Farming should be for those who are prepared to meet the costs that go with agriculture. It is disturbing that the wages we are asking them to pay our members are way below the poverty datum line, but the farm owners still insist that they are too much," Zivira said.

Farm workers are paid a maximum of US$30 a month, when they are paid, and the GAPWUZ bid for a minimum monthly wage of US$50 has so far fallen on deaf ears.

Low wages, non-payment of wages, and poor living and working conditions were accelerating the flight of farm labourers. Zivira said children were being employed in their place "because they [farmers] know that these minors lack the capacity to demand what is due to them".

Another round of "farm invasions" by high-ranking officials in Mugabe's ZANU-PF party - after the formation of the unity government in February 2009 - meant ongoing instability on farms. More than 3,000 families had been forced to migrate from farms whose ownership had changed since February, with some finding refuge by the roadside, Zivira said.

Ennia Samson, 40, a widow of Malawian origin, moved to a business centre in the Murombedzi district of Mashonaland West Province, about 65km northwest of the capital, Harare, because ownership of the farm she was raised on changed hands in March.

"When the new farmer arrived he encouraged us to stay, saying he would look after us well, but by the time I left in September only a few workers had been given a maximum of US$15," Samson told IRIN.

Other women and girls had left the farm and were now domestic workers or had gone into commercial sex work. Samson had cleaned shops at the business centre and managed to raise the capital to start a small second-hand clothes business

She now lived in a makeshift shelter with her two school-going children. "Even though we are living as squatters, life is much better here than on the farm, where we were almost starving," Samson said.

fm/go/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86989THANDAIT Tuesday, November 10, 2009 (IRIN) - Before the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, Cho Tuu, 30, never found it hard to make ends meet, but these days he struggles to feed his family. THANDAIT Tuesday, November 10, 2009 (IRIN) - Before the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, Cho Tuu, 30, never found it hard to make ends meet, but these days he struggles to feed his family.
 
Without any fishing equipment, Cho Tuu is forced to pay the equivalent of US$15 per month to hire a boat, and to hand over three-quarters of his catch to the owner of the fishing net that he rents.
 
"Some months, I can barely make enough money to even pay for hiring the boat," said the father of two school-age children from his makeshift hut in Thandait village in the Ayeyarwady Delta, the area worst hit by Nargis.
 
Though Cho Tuu has been expecting fishing equipment from humanitarian agencies for more than 17 months, no assistance has come yet.
 
Like Cho Tuu, officials say thousands of fishermen are still unable to restore their livelihoods because of a lack of aid following Cyclone Nargis, which left nearly 140,000 people dead or missing, and 2.4 million affected.
 
After paddy planting, fishing is the second largest source of income for households in the Ayeyarwady Delta, a labyrinth of rivers, ponds and waterways.
 
For 20 percent of Nargis-affected households, full-time fishing is the primary source of income, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Myanmar.
 
Tesfai Ghermazien, the FAO’s senior emergency and rehabilitation coordinator in Myanmar, said it would take 3-5 years to fully restore the livelihoods of cyclone-affected fishermen.
 
"Very few [fishermen], if any, are back to normal," Ghermazien told IRIN.
 
Although the main sources of livelihood in the Delta are farming, fish and livestock, these sub-sectors were the least funded in the Cyclone Nargis response, he said.

According to the FAO, 1,550 marine fishing vessels, 50 percent of small inland fishing boats (i.e. about 100,000 out of 200,000), and 70 percent of fishing gear were destroyed by Nargis.

ASEAN review
 
A review of recovery efforts by the Myanmar government, the UN, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) released in July this year (see: http://unic.un.org/imucms/Dish.aspx?loc=80&pg=384) found that livelihoods remain insecure in the worst-affected townships of  Ayeyarwady and Yangon divisions.
 
It said that the townships of Bogale, Labutta, Mawlamyinegyun and Pyapon in the delta’s south - where fishing is the predominant income source - had experienced the highest percentage of losses of fishing gear.
 
However, on average, only 6 percent of surveyed households in these four townships reported receiving fishing gear as a relief item. Only 11 percent of the surveyed households reported receiving boats, although 33 percent of them said they considered a boat as a pressing need to restore their livelihood activity, said the review.
 
A third Post-Nargis Periodic Review is expected at the end of 2009.
 
Equipment lacking
 
In an effort to help cyclone-affected fishermen restore their livelihoods, FAO and its cooperating agencies have distributed about 5,000 boats, and some 130,000 sets of different types of fishing gear, mainly nets and traps.
 
The Department of Fisheries has also distributed over 10,000 boats with nets and gear.
 
Before the end of the year, FAO plans to hand over 200 boats which are expected to have a longer life than most common boats now being built. It will also distribute a few thousand boats next year.
 
In the meantime, though, most cyclone-affected fishermen complain that they still do not have enough equipment.
 
"There are 154 fishermen in our fishing village, most of whom lost their fishing gear in the cyclone," said Aung Myo, the head of Thandait Village. "But, so far we just got 14 fishing boats and gear."
 
Besides being forced to hire equipment or take out loans to buy gear, fishermen have complained of the burden of paying for boats distributed by the government, said Aung Myo.
 
He said the cost of the fishing boat and gear - nearly the equivalent of US$360 - had to be paid back in four installments.
 
Other complaints include those about the equipment distributed. Some say the nets they received were inappropriate - those who fish in rivers were given nets for sea fishing, and vice-versa. Some boats distributed have also been found wanting.
 
“The fishing boat I received was quite small,” said Tint Swe, 42, who received a fishing boat from the Department of Fisheries on an installation system.
 
Tint Swe, who lost two motorized boats during Nargis, said he had been forced to spend additional money to modify the boat to his requirements.
 
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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86961SANAA Monday, November 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Nearly 100,000 people displaced over five years of fighting between government troops and Houthi-led Shia rebels have been receiving food aid in the governorates of Saada, Hajja, Amran and Al-Jawf since mid-August, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).SANAA Monday, November 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Nearly 100,000 people displaced over five years of fighting between government troops and Houthi-led Shia rebels have been receiving food aid in the governorates of Saada, Hajja, Amran and Al-Jawf since mid-August, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Since the outbreak of renewed clashes on 12 August, WFP and its implementing partners have provided regular food assistance to 53,956 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Saada Governorate, 25,543 in Hajjah, 5,831 in Amran and 3,346 in al-Jawf, according to Maria Santamarina, a WFP reports and advocacy official in Yemen.

The overall figure includes those assisted by a cross-border operation from Saudi Arabia. "WFP began a cross-border operation from Sanaa to Saudi Arabia and back down into the Mandaba area near the Saudi border where more than 9,450 IDPs trapped by the conflict have received food assistance since 1 November," Santamarina said.

She told IRIN that only 13,447 (less than 14 percent) of the total 98,126 IDPs assisted by WFP were living in camps. “We coordinate with our partner NGOs, local councils and the UN Refugee Agency [UNHCR] to register and verify displaced families in and outside camps.”

Yassir Khairi, an emergency officer at UK-based NGO Islamic Relief, one of WFP’s implementing partners, said that in October they distributed 4,318 metric tons of food to some 7,303 families living in schools, empty poultry farms, scattered tents, in the open, or with host families.

“All members of these families receiving food assistance in October are new IDPs registered by a joint committee made up of NGOs and local authorities,” he told IRIN.

Khairi said each family (with an average of seven members) receives two 50kg sacks of wheat, six cans of beans, 2kg of dates, three litres of vegetable oil, 10kg of sugar and 1kg of salt per month.

Access still problematic

Access to war-afflicted civilians, particularly those inside Saada town, still remains a challenge for aid workers.

"Sometimes, it takes weeks to coordinate safe corridors for passing food aid to the affected families because communication networks in the war-ridden areas are down," said Abdullah Dhahban, a Saada local councillor engaged in the aid distribution effort.

WFP representative in Yemen Giancarlo Cirri said that while the agency had seen some improvements in access “WFP and partners continue to struggle to reach families who have been trapped by the conflict for three months".

He added that WFP is seeing increasing IDP movement towards areas where assistance is being provided. “This suggests that the humanitarian situation of families out of reach of agencies is deteriorating and earlier coping mechanisms of families are exhausted.”

Cirri told IRIN that WFP was continuing to use a planning figure of 150,000 IDPs for assistance, but that this could be increased quickly and easily. He also said WFP was short of US$2.7 million for its Saada operations until the end of 2009, and short of US$14.4 million until June 2010.

A recent report by UNHCR estimates the total number of IDPs in northern Yemen to have increased to 175,000 due to ongoing clashes.

ay/ed/cbhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86943NAIROBI Monday, November 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Some of the most widespread forms of malnutrition can best be reduced by delivering micronutrients and fortifying food in new, cost-effective ways, in combination with community outreach work, experts have said.NAIROBI Monday, November 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Some of the most widespread forms of malnutrition can best be reduced by delivering micronutrients and fortifying food in new, cost-effective ways, in combination with community outreach work, experts have said.

Approaches could range from the obvious - adding iron to flour – to the novel, such as vitamin-enriched chewing gum, a Nairobi conference heard.

Vitamin A, iron and iodine are the most important micronutrients in global public health terms, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), particularly for children and pregnant women in poor countries.

Vitamin A deficiency affects more than half of all countries, especially in Africa and Southeast Asia, and it is "especially important where under-five mortality is high," Sue Horton, a malnutrition economist, told the conference.

The conference on nutrition, held in Nairobi on 3 November, was organized by Danish think-tank The Copenhagen Consensus Center (CCC).

CCC has ranked micronutrient supplements as a top development priority following findings of a study it commissioned in 2008 to identify the best ways to spend aid and development money.

Provision of Vitamin A, it added, to children aged six months to five years every four to six months could reduce mortality by 23 percent.

Currently, Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children and increases disease risk and death from severe infections. In pregnant women it causes night blindness and may increase the risk of maternal mortality, according to WHO.

CCC says that up to 219 million children worldwide are susceptible to Vitamin A deficiency, and over one billion people to zinc deficiency.

Supplements not the only answer

Experts at the conference said current systems of providing the vitamin through supplements often missed out on some target groups.

"[Community] outreach is important in remote areas and among migratory groups, as relying on immunization days alone does not work," Horton said.

Kenya, for example, used to achieve coverage rates of over 80 percent for Vitamin A twice a year using mobile immunization campaigns. From 2007, supplements were only provided at health facilities. Coverage then declined to 20 percent for six to 59-month-old children, Horton said. A similar decline was observed in India.

The CCC also noted that global zinc supplementation to reduce the impact of diarrhoea was low, yet it could reduce diarrhoeal mortality for children under five by 50 percent.

"Outreach can be particularly cost-effective when Vitamin A supplementation is combined with the delivery of other services such as deworming, distribution of bednets, etc," it noted.

Shawn Baker, vice-president of Helen Keller International, said additional childhood interventions needed to be institutionalized yearly to avoid locking out some children on routine child health days.

"We need to be thinking not only of what we can do well but what we can do well at a large scale," Baker said.

Food fortification

Such interventions could include fortification and the addition of nutrients to widely-used foods. According to the CCC, salt iodization and flour fortification with iron are cheap.

In West Africa, a regional initiative is promoting folic acid fortification in wheat flour and Vitamin A in cooking oil.

"This has the potential to reach a large number of people with essential nutrients," said Kodjo Gbemou, director of the Grand Moulins du Togo, a flour milling company.

Wheat flour is industry-processed while the rest of locally grown cereals are processed at home, Gbemou said. West African countries, he added, were accelerating regulations to make fortification mandatory, as is the case in Cote d'Ivoire and Senegal.

Chewing gum

Globally, private companies are also developing innovative products to deliver micronutrients. Such products include Danish Gumlink's Vitamin A chewing gum.

The gum, prepared in a dry-cold process to protect the heat-sensitive Vitamin A, is sugar free and easily digested. It comes in two forms - for children aged 3-5, and for pregnant and lactating women.

"The gum promotes mouth hygiene, is easy to administer compared to other programmes that rely on co-immunization campaigns, and children find gum fun," Henrik Jespersen, Gumlink Group vice-president said.

"Our idea is to use our technology to provide one more way of delivering Vitamin A to those who need it."

Deworming

Other effective interventions include regular deworming. Deworming works well as the parasites stop nutrients from being fully digested.

"Mass treatment is safe and inexpensive... The cost of delivering one round of treatment is about 15 US cents per child when administered in school and 25 US cents for pre-school children when combined with another intervention in programmes such as Child Health Days or in primary health care facilities," the CCC said in a paper.

The Nairobi conference called for improved community nutrition, including the use of locally available nutritious foods and breast-feeding education.

Such practices, CCC director Bjorn Lomborg said, were crucial in a world with competing challenges and funding constraints. "Where do we get the most bang for the buck?" he asked.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86945BAGHDAD Sunday, November 08, 2009 (IRIN) - More and more people in Iraq are being affected by food insecurity, a senior official has said. Reduced domestic agricultural production, inflation, unemployment and a crumbling system of subsidized food distributions have hit poor people the hardest.BAGHDAD Sunday, November 08, 2009 (IRIN) - More and more people in Iraq are being affected by food insecurity, a senior official has said.

Reduced domestic agricultural production, inflation, unemployment and a crumbling system of subsidized food distributions have hit poor people the hardest.

“There is still a big percentage of Iraqi people who can’t secure enough food. With unemployment running at 18-20 percent they can’t buy what they need,” said Muna Turki Al-Mousawi, head of the state-run Centre for Market Research and Consumer Protection, adding that about 20 percent of Iraq’s 25 million people live below the poverty line.

Domestic agricultural production - already affected by reduced rainfall - has also been hit by a lack of government support and lax controls on cheap food imports, with which farmers cannot compete in some cases, she said.

On 31 August, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Iraq had its worst cereal harvest in a decade and that its wheat harvest was set to fall to one million tonnes, from an average of 3.5 million tonnes per annum over the past decade. Domestic rice production also fell from an average 500,000 tons a year to an estimated 250,000 tons this year.

Iraq imports more than 80 percent of its food needs, al-Mousawi told IRIN.

The crumbling subsidized food distribution scheme which was set up in the 1990s and designed to supply basic food items to poor people as part of the UN oil-for-food programme is making matters worse. At least 60 percent of the population depends on the subsidized food, according to Iraqi Trade Ministry figures.

There are quality and distribution problems: “We have comments on the quality of the food items. And it never reaches the families in time or in sufficient quantities. Some of its items are only distributed 8-10 months a year,” she said, contrasting the current situation with that prior to 2003 when “there was a kind of stability with regard to food security nationwide as there was control of imported food and government support to agriculture.”

Government support for farmers?

After 2003, she said, the borders were opened to random imports without real scrutiny, and government support for farmers diminished, adversely affecting domestic production, which could not compete with cheaper imports.

“The government has realized these dangers over the past two years and started to support the farmers and impose restrictions on food imports, and yet we are still far from the self-sufficiency we had, as we are only producing 20 percent of our food needs,” she said.

Three draft laws which aim to protect local production and regulate imports, if approved, could dramatically improve the situation, al-Mousawi said.

Abdul-Zahra Al-Hindawi, spokesman for the Iraqi Planning Ministry’s Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT), estimates that about 23 percent of Iraqis live below the poverty line, meaning they earn US$66 a month or less.

“One quarter of the whole population is not a small percentage. It needs a lot of thinking and economic strategies to help change this reality and improve it,” he said.

COSIT is set to present a national five-year anti-poverty strategy to the Cabinet by the end of November.

sm/ed/cbhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86926NAIROBI Friday, November 06, 2009 (IRIN) - Aid agencies operating in Somalia say they need more money but that some donors are holding back, concerned at where resources might end up in areas too dangerous for international staff.NAIROBI Friday, November 06, 2009 (IRIN) - Aid agencies operating in Somalia say they need more money but that some donors are holding back, concerned at where resources might end up in areas too dangerous for international staff.

"Some of the largest donors in 2008 have given much less or almost no support so far this year," said Kiki Gbeho, head of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for Somalia.


Large parts of Islamist rebel-dominated southern and central Somalia are classified as just below the worst "famine" level on a five-point scale used by food security analysts. Aid planners are considering where needy people might move, in or out of the country, and where aid could be delivered securely.


As of November 2009, total available humanitarian funding for Somalia stands at US$571 million, compared with $615 million in 2008 (according to the OCHA-managed Financial Tracking System). However, this masks the fact that over $215 million was carried over from unspent or late 2008 monies.

Gbeho warned that if the funding situation did not improve soon, it could have a negative impact on the whole region, as fleeing Somalis sought relief not only within safer areas of Somalia as but in neighbouring countries too.
"According to one worst-case scenario, an additional 283,000 Somalis could flee to neighbouring countries and would require assistance," Gbeho said. "Already, 530,000 Somali refugees live in several countries in the region."

The lukewarm and unpredictable donor response, senior aid workers and observers told IRIN, is due at least in part to perceptions that aid operations cannot be properly supervised in areas controlled by armed groups, including Al-Shabab, which might steal or "tax" the aid or benefit indirectly. Some donors feel it is hard to provide the "due diligence" their taxpayers deserve and doubt "remote control" management and monitoring techniques [LINK]. This comes on top of budget pressures due to the global financial crisis, observers say.

The World Food Programme is conducting an internal investigation in response to allegations that some of its relief supplies are being diverted away from their intended beneficiaries.

Britain's Department for International Development (DFID), is "very concerned about allegations of humanitarian food aid being sold for profit in Somalia. Any future contributions to the WFP will be in the light of the findings of the investigation into the alleged misuse of aid," according to a spokesman.

"We are committed to helping the people of Somalia, and this year alone we will provide £23 million to tackle hunger, and provide healthcare and education," he said.

"Donor countries have to be careful with the money they give to Somalia," a western diplomat, who requested anonymity, said. "There is a problem with lack of proper monitoring inside the country, due to the prevailing security situation... There is also the fear in some quarters that some of the money is ending up in the wrong hands."

Aid agencies argue that even in dangerous areas, brave and dedicated local staff, creative partnerships and networks involving local NGOs and community leadership can and do deliver successful life-saving programmes. A combination of appropriate monitoring techniques, they say, offers fully credible accountability.
According to OCHA, 42 humanitarian aid workers have been killed since January 2008 and 10 remain in captivity, and very few international staff stay continuously in south-central Somalia -while some areas are off-limits even to national staff.

Alun McDonald of Oxfam, while admitting that access was a problem, given the lack of security and functioning government, said: "But just because it's difficult, that's not an excuse to stop aid when 3.6 million people need assistance. We stress to donors that we work with trusted and long-term local partners, with regular monitoring visits from Oxfam staff, and we are confident that aid is being delivered appropriately," he added.

"We can respond, despite the situation," insisted another aid official. Unrealistic conditions being floated by some donors to try to limit risk would make it impossible even to get "from point A to point B" in areas controlled by militants, the official added.

US humanitarian funding has been tangled much of the year in anti-terrorism legislation http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86452, affecting its ability to contribute food and cash. Nevertheless it has still been the largest humanitarian donor in 2009. A US State Department spokesperson told IRIN an ongoing review on US aid to Somalia "will include ensuring compliance with US laws designed to prevent potential support to terrorists".
Private non-governmental donations have become the second biggest source of donations reported to the FTS (see BOX). Aid officials say concerns about accountability have influenced donors, but concerns have not been publicly articulated.

The fact that some channels of funding have not diminished in 2009, such as governance support to the fledgling TFG, assistance to the African Union's peacekeeping force and even in direct weapons transfers to the government, has left some NGOs nonplussed. "Transferring guns seems a lot more risky than food and water," commented one aid worker.

UN Under-Secretary-General Lynn Pascoe in late October hinted at a chicken and egg situation when he said: "I would guess that we will be asking for more money and more assistance in the months ahead. Clearly they're going to need it both for security and also for the social services the government needs to provide. One of the difficulties about Somalia, of course, is that without the aid and the assistance for real development aid, it's very hard for the government to show what it's doing."

Meanwhile, further narrowing humanitarian space, local media reported this week a spokesperson for Al-Shabab has announced that aid carrying the US flag would be banned in areas under its control.

Some argue that not funding humanitarian operations would strengthen, not weaken, armed militant groups. In spite of the risk of aid diversion, donors must not reduce their levels of humanitarian assistance, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on the rights of displaced people urged last month. Walter Kälin told journalists: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32649&Cr=somali&Cr1= "This would not only mean punishing the most vulnerable among already destitute communities, but also playing into the hands of radical elements who could easily exploit the situation."
Aid agencies are putting the finishing touches on the consolidated humanitarian appeal for 2010, for release early December. A well-placed official said funding will be "even more tricky next year".

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86909DAKAR Friday, November 06, 2009 (IRIN) - Even when Guinea is not facing political crisis and reeling from a massacre, daily life is gruelling for many and instability is never far away. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in a September 2009 report says Guinea is “volatile” due to a combination of sharp economic decline; widespread and chronic poverty; limited access to basic services like health, water and sanitation; and persistent political instability.DAKAR Friday, November 06, 2009 (IRIN) - Even when Guinea is not facing political crisis and reeling from a massacre, daily life is gruelling for many and instability is never far away.

In this country that holds 30 percent of the world’s reserves of bauxite, the primary ore in aluminium, most people live hand-to-mouth; only about 19 percent of the population has access to proper sanitation facilities; malnutrition is widespread.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in a September 2009 report says Guinea is “volatile” due to a combination of sharp economic decline; widespread and chronic poverty; limited access to basic services like health, water and sanitation; and persistent political instability.

Some facts about Guinea:

-At the peak of regional conflicts in the 1990s Guinea housed some 800,000 refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia; today some 25,000 refugees remain in Guinea, including from Côte d’Ivoire

-Guinea has borders with Côte d’Ivoire (instability and political impasse since a 2002 rebellion), Guinea-Bissau (narcotics-trafficking hub struggling to emerge from a history of coups, counter-coups, civil war and political assassinations), Liberia (civil war 1989-2003), Mali, Senegal (attacks by armed groups on civilians and sporadic fighting in southern Casamance region) and Sierra Leone (civil war 1991-2002)

-Since independence in 1958 Guinea has not had a peaceful transition of power

-Population: 9.8 million; average population growth rate 2.6 percent from 1990 to 2007

-70 percent of population living under the poverty threshold of US$1.25 per day, as of 2005

-Chronic malnutrition has increased by 50 percent in the past five years

-Polio-free from 2004 to 2008, Guinea recorded at least 16 cases of polio in 2009

-Known as “the water tower of West Africa”, Guinea is the source of the 4,180-kilometre Niger River and a number of other major rivers

-Nearly half the population has no access to safe drinking water

-Cholera, yellow fever and seasonal flooding regularly spark humanitarian emergencies, straining already limited national capacity to cope

-In the UN Human Development Index Guinea ranks 170 of 182 countries

-150 in 1,000 children are likely to die before fifth birthday

-93 in 1,000 infants are likely to die before age one

-980 women die annually from pregnancy-related causes per 100,000 births

-An estimated 1.6 percent of the population infected with HIV

-0.1 physicians per 1,000 people as of 2004

-Illiteracy rate (age 15 and above) 70.5 percent

-Life expectancy 55 years

Sources: UN Children’s Fund, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, World Bank, UN Human Development Index 2009 report

np/cihttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86924CAIRO Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Despite a number of positive economic indicators, Egypt has a hunger problem: Nearly a third of all children are malnourished, according to a new report compiled by the Ministry of Health and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).CAIRO Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Despite a number of positive economic indicators, Egypt has a hunger problem: Nearly a third of all children are malnourished, according to a new report compiled by the Ministry of Health and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

The Egyptian Demographic Health Survey (EDHS) 2008, [http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pdf/FR220/FR220.pdf] published in March 2009, recorded a 6 percent increase in undernourishment severe enough to stunt growth in children under five, pushing the percentage of stunted Egyptian toddlers to 29 percent from 23 percent in 2000.

The survey collected data in 2007/2008, when gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 7.2 percent, indicating that strong economic growth had not benefited ordinary Egyptians. A slower GDP growth of 4.7 percent is forecast for 2008/2009.

“Within the recent context of economic crises and economic slowdown, in addition to the growing epidemics of avian and H1N1 influenza, nutrition is not treated as a priority,” said Hala Abu Khatwa, head of communications in Egypt for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Government-run food programmes are in place: In partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP), fortified date bars have been distributed in high-risk schools since 1963; and government-subsidized flour and cooking oil - used to make ‘baladi’ bread - are fortified with iron/folic acid and Vitamins A and D.

Chicken cull

Yet some government policies have adversely affected the nutrition of the poorest.

UNICEF and WFP said the EDHS report of a spike in malnourished children was partly attributable to the government’s decision to cull millions of chickens in 2007.

“The culling had a significant and substantial impact on household consumption of poultry and eggs, especially [on] young children, and also put considerable strain on household resources since poultry sales accounted for nearly half of the incomes of many Egyptian households,” said UNICEF’s Abu-Khatwa citing a 2007 study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) entitled Livelihood Impact Assessment in Egypt. [http://www.fao.org/docs/eims/upload//239037/ai294e.pdf]

Gianpietro Bordignon, the director of WFP in Egypt, attributed growing malnutrition among children to “the successive series of shocks that affected people, especially the poorest. This started with the outbreak of avian flu and the subsequent killing of poultry that lowered the intake of protein, and then the financial and food crises that followed.”

No data has yet been collected on the nutritional status of the estimated 70,000 unofficial garbage collectors and pig farmers in the Cairo area [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86742] who relied on pigs for meat, income and organic waste.

Economic reforms

Since 1991 Egypt has embarked on economic reform programmes which have not necessarily helped the poorest in society.

A July report by Egypt’s General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, seen by IRIN and entitled Towards Fair Distribution of the Fruits of Growth, found that 66 percent of the wealth generated in Egypt is sector specific, benefiting only those directly employed by the sector rather than the economy as a whole.

“Between 2005 and 2008, the risk of extreme poverty increased by almost 20 percent. Poverty levels are highest in Upper [southern] Egypt where 70 percent of the country's poor live,” Abu Khatwa said. Upper Egypt is home to about 17 percent of the country’s 82 million people.

WFP’s Bordignon also pointed out that since Egypt is not a “least developed country”, it misses out on international food aid.

According to the 2009 UNDP Human Development Report, [http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_EGY.html] 23 percent of the population are below the poverty line. Food riots [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77691] in 2008 were symptomatic of widespread poverty.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86893KANDAHAR Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Afghanistan appears to be getting drier: Since the 1996 drought many traditional irrigation sources such as springs, streams, rivers and man-made subterranean aqueducts have been drying up in the southern provinces, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL).KANDAHAR Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Afghanistan appears to be getting drier: Since the 1996 drought many traditional irrigation sources such as springs, streams, rivers and man-made subterranean aqueducts have been drying up in the southern provinces, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL).
 
A succession of dry years in 1999-2004 and the severe drought of 1999-2001 substantially reduced cultivated areas in the south and east and put great pressure on grazing land, says Afghanistan's Environment 2008 joint report http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/afg_soe_E.pdf by Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
 
"Ecosystem services, soil water content, and conditions of rangelands are most affected by climatic hazards and changes. The effects on food crops and livestock are similarly high. Irrigated agriculture, livestock herders and dry land farmers are considered the most susceptible to the impacts of weather hazards and climatic changes," the report said.
 
Many farmers are battling persistent drought, which has also affected subterranean aqueducts known locally as `kareze’ http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries/afghanistan/index.stm or `qanat’, which channel water from underground aquifers for use in irrigation.
 
“Drought has destroyed more than 80 percent of `kareze’ and springs in [the southern province of] Kandahar,” the head of MAIL in Kandahar, Abdul Hai Nemati, told IRIN. “This has devastating impacts on agriculture and rural livelihoods,” said Baba Jan, 59, a farmer in Arghandab District, Kandahar Province.
 
DFID-funded report
 
A 2009 report -http://www.livelihoodsrc.org/uploads/File/2007447_AfghanCC_ExS_09MAR09.pdf funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and written by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) entitled Socio-economic Impacts of Climate Change in Afghanistan - said increasing desertification and land degradation were likely: "Drought is likely to be regarded as the norm by 2030, rather than as a temporary or cyclical event."

"The vulnerability of the agricultural sector to increased temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns and snow melt is high. Increased soil evaporation, reduced river flow from earlier snow melt, and less frequent rain during peak cultivation seasons will impact upon agricultural productivity and crop choice availability," the report said.
 
Crop failure levels due to water shortages and the amount of potentially productive land left uncultivated will probably increase. More water intensive staple crops will become less attractive to farmers, with a likely increase in the attractiveness of those that are more drought-hardy, including opium poppy, it added.
 
Some 80 percent of the country’s 28 million people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture, according to the NEPA/UNEP report.

Lack of investment
 
MAIL officials say Afghanistan has enough water for irrigation and other needs, but the UNEP/NEPA report says “functional irrigation systems are running at about 25 percent efficiency against their potential of 40-60 percent.” Lack of investment in irrigation systems, lack of modern irrigation tools such as pumps, and a lack of awareness among rural farming communities were to blame, it said.

“Sometimes farmers waste some 30 percent of the water while irrigating a field,” Abdul Haq Rashiq, an agronomist and lecturer at the faculty of agriculture in Kabul University, said.
 
The drying up of irrigation sources and poor irrigation management have forced more and more families to consider leaving the land to seek alternative livelihoods. Some are selling livestock and land in order to dig deep wells, buy power generators and water pumps and irrigate other land for fruit trees, said MAIL’s Nemati.
 
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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86864DAMASCUS Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - A new pilot project by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Syria has come up with a novel way of getting food aid to Iraqi refugees. WFP claims the project is a world first.DAMASCUS Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - A new pilot project by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Syria has come up with a novel way of getting food aid to Iraqi refugees. WFP claims the project is a world first.
 
Under the pilot scheme, 1,000 Iraqi families (3,500 beneficiaries) living in Damascus are to receive vouchers worth US$22 per person sent to their mobile phones every two months. These vouchers are redeemable against certain goods in government stores in Jaramana and Saida Zeinab, areas with high Iraqi populations.
 
Beneficiaries continue to receive 50 percent of their rations under the usual handout system. However, if successful, the pilot could replace the traditional food handouts from distribution centres for all refugees.
 
How do SMS vouchers work? WFP distributed new SIM cards to the Iraqi refugees. The new number is registered to the refugee and their $22 voucher is sent with a personalized code to the phone every two months, coinciding with the normal food distribution cycle. If they need to buy something, they take the phone with its voucher number to a designated shop, where it is verified by the shopkeeper and purchases can be made.

The phone
 
Any make or model of phone capable of receiving text messages works for the scheme, according to WFP. SIM cards for the pilot were donated by MTN in Syria, which also provides the text messages for free. According to Selly Muzammil, spokesperson for WFP Syria, without the donation the scheme would still cost less than 1.03 SYP [$.02] per head to run per food distribution.
 
Beneficiaries do not have to spend their $22 voucher all in one go. Everything is computerized, so once a transaction is made in the shop, the system automatically updates and beneficiaries receive a text message with their updated balance.
 
Beneficiaries were given two days training on how to redeem their vouchers. The voucher can be used by persons other than the beneficiary but WFP says there is little risk of fraud owing to a system of double verification of the voucher code and value by the shopkeeper.
 
The shops
 
Under the pilot only two government-run shops are participating in the scheme, but WFP says in future the number of shops could increase, and include private shops. When beneficiaries make purchases, the shop sends the electronic invoice to WFP. This is then verified and the shop is reimbursed. The shops are not paid extra for their services and the food is not subsidized.
 
The food
 
The foodstuffs included in the scheme are: rice, wheat flour, lentils, chickpeas, vegetable oil, cheese, eggs and canned fish. The list is more extensive than for handouts: It allows the purchase of certain fresh foods which cannot be stored for food distributions.
 
Non-food items distributed by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) which are not redeemable with a voucher include nappies and sanitary towels. Currently, tea, dates and sugar are still physically distributed to beneficiaries on the pilot, but potentially they could be included in the voucher scheme.
 
Advantages
 
There are advantages of the scheme for both refugees and WFP.
 
“The main goal of the scheme is to allow for a more diversified diet based on personal choices and the preferences of the beneficiaries,” said Muzammil.
 
Refugees interviewed by IRIN at the food distribution centres frequently complained about the lack of fresh food. They said they often sold rice under market value in order to afford to buy products such as cheese. The choice given by the new scheme, albeit limited, is likely to alleviate this complaint.
 
Another advantage is the ease of access. “People will no longer need to queue at food distribution points or travel long distances to distribution centres,” Muhannad Hadi, WFP’s country director for Syria, said.
 
Development experts say this new simpler process gives refugees more independence and dignity.
 
For WFP, the advantages are a more efficient system.
 
“Agencies benefit from lower delivery costs from schemes such as this,” food aid expert Chris Barrett of Cornell University told IRIN. WFP has no figures on the costs but says it expects the service to be more efficient.
 
Disadvantages
 
Distorting local markets, not reaching the most vulnerable and the potential for fraud are the biggest issues facing the scheme.
 
“If local availability is limited, then vouchers merely fuel local inflation and cause real harm,” Barrett told IRIN. This could be more of an issue with the pilot scheme because there are limited shops involved and limited items eligible for voucher use. “It will be important to monitor the price effects, if any, of this scheme,” he said.

If those most in need do not have secure access to mobile phones, then phone-based voucher transfers will miss those who most need assistance.

Measures are already in place to prevent misuse of the SIM cards but Abeer Etefa, WFP’s regional public information officer for the Middle East, stressed that this is a pilot programme, in which the agency is attempting to discover whether the system is vulnerable to abuse.

There are more than 1.2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, according to government figures. About 130,000 regularly receive food aid from WFP and get complementary food and non-food assistance from UNHCR. Experts say WFP’s pilot project would be easy to upscale to this number. The technology could also be transferred to comparable situations.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86872NOUAKCHOTT Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - At the health centre in Dar Naim, a working class neighbourhood of Nouakchott, the building for malnourished children is always full: in rural areas the seasons and crops affect malnutrition levels whereas in the capital this phenomenon remains constant throughout the year. NOUAKCHOTT Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - At the health centre in Dar Naim, a working class neighbourhood of Nouakchott, the building for malnourished children is always full: in rural areas the seasons and crops affect malnutrition levels whereas in the capital this phenomenon remains constant throughout the year.

The most recent nutrition survey carried out in July by the Ministry of Health and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) using SMART methodology focused on assessing the nutritional situation for children between harvests.

The survey revealed that three regions of the country (southeast, south and centre) had the highest rates of global acute malnutrition (GAM). In central areas the rate was 19.2 percent, well above the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold of 15 percent.

In rural areas there tends to be various causes for malnutrition, notes Mohamed Moustapha Kane, head of the Health Ministry nutrition service.

General poverty levels in the country – more than 46 percent of the population live below the poverty threshold, according to the UN – and the lean season both contribute to malnutrition, but in addition in rural areas, although they are "agropastoral regions, not everyone has [cattle or land]. People also lack knowledge…of [good nutritional practices]. Isolation and lack of infrastructure are also an issue: access to health, drinking water or [hygiene]".

According to the July 2009 study the GAM rate in Nouakchott (7.9 percent) is much lower than in other areas. However the difference is that in the capital, as opposed to in rural areas, the seasons have little influence on the phenomenon: the December 2008 SMART study during a post-harvest period showed a 5.9-percent rate in Nouakchott compared to 11.9 percent in the central region.

Many observers have noted that the time of year does not affect food availability in urban areas. According to Nené Koné, who has been in charge of child nutrition at the Dar Naim health centre since 1991, in large part a lack of money perpetuates the problem in Nouakchott.

When mothers arrive at the centre with their children, "the main issue that comes across is their extreme poverty,” Koné told IRIN. "If the mother is hungry because she has not been able to eat, then she has no milk [to breastfeed]".

"Families are heavily in debt throughout the year,” said Isabel Marco of Communauté des Filles de la Charité, who support the centre. The huge increase in global food prices in 2008 has made the situation even worse for urban families who do not produce any food and have buy everything: 25 litres of milk cost 35,000 ouguiya (US$134), compared to $53 in 2004, said Marco. Today it costs 24,000 ouguiya ($92) – the equivalent of one month’s minimum wage in a country where "traditionally we drink a lot of milk”.

Child malnutrition in urban areas is also linked to the financial situation of many Mauritanians deteriorating over the last few decades. Tahya Sidiekhreye, in her 50s, has brought up "lots" of children. She arrived at the Dar Naim centre at the start of October with her grandson, who is 15 months old and suffering from acute severe malnutrition.

"I never had these problems with my children: my husband and I always managed to get by [to feed them], but now it’s too hard,” she said. "[My grandson] has been ill for four months and I haven’t got the money to care for him. [His mother] doesn’t work and his Dad is unemployed, so they cannot care for him.”

She is looking after her grandson because her daughter does not know what to do, she told IRIN; the child’s mother is 15. When mothers lack nutritional knowledge and do not have enough milk they are unable to breastfeed, many experts have noted. And in urban areas in particular certain practices that lead to malnutrition have become common.

"In the past breastfeeding was highly socially valued, but there is now a trend of using milk substitute,” Brahim Ould Isselmou, communications officer at UNICEF, told IRIN. Despite the cost of this practice – a tin of baby milk that lasts five days is sold for around 1,600 ouguiyas ($6) – it also changes habits. "After a few months some mothers become confused and sometimes you see [some of] them giving meat to six-month-old babies.”

While health services are more accessible in urban areas than rural, the quality of care and support for malnutrition is not always guaranteed, as Sidiekhreye discovered. Before finally getting care for her grandson at the Dar Naim health centre she spoke with a private doctor who referred her to a hospital as the child was showing worrying symptoms. "He was vomiting a lot and was dehydrated but they did not hospitalize him: they just gave me a prescription for [paracetamol] and sent me away,” she told IRIN.

In order to standardize care and support services for malnutrition and among other things improve quality, the authorities developed a national protocol in 2007, which all centres are expected to follow. The protocol called for standardizing how malnutrition is assessed, referred and monitored and how care and support are provided. At Dar Naim and other health centres staff have been trained on this protocol with support from UNICEF.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86874NOUAKCHOTT Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Adama Ndiaye, 20, is originally from the Kaédi region in the south of Mauritania – one of the regions worst affected by malnutrition. After losing her first two children she decided to go to the capital Nouakchott to care for her twins and her youngest child.NOUAKCHOTT Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Adama Ndiaye, 20, is originally from the Kaédi region in the south of Mauritania – one of the regions worst affected by malnutrition. After losing her first two children she decided to go to the capital Nouakchott to care for her twins and her youngest child.

"My twins are [21 months] and my baby is one month old. I had two children before; the first died at one year and the other lived a month and a half. They were ill and had fever. They refused to breastfeed and then they passed away [due to complications linked to malnutrition].

"My husband is a farmer [near Kaédi] and he grows millet and peanuts. Sometimes we have food but at other times birds eat the seeds and nothing grows. In our region the majority of people eat only once a day, myself included.

"As I wasn’t eating much I didn’t have enough milk for the twins. [Shortly after they were born] the girls became ill so I decided to come to Nouakchott to look after them. I took them to Dar Naim [a health centre in a Nouakchott suburb managed by the State with support from aid agencies and donors including the UN Children’s Fund] each day.

"After six months my twins had recovered so I went back to my husband. I then became pregnant again. But my twins started to get sick again so I returned to Nouakchott. I’ve been here for five months now staying with [relatives]. I come to the centre nearly every day. The twins get porridge made from rice, fish and vegetables and there’s [baby] milk for the little one.

"As soon as my children get better I will go back to the village. I came here just to care for them but I don’t want to stay. I want to go home. My husband and I will get by with the kids.”

ail/lc/nphttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86876HARARE Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's threat to appoint interim ministers to plug the gap left by the "disengagement" of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from the unity government could lead to a review of donor funding, a highly placed official from a major donor country told IRIN.HARARE Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's threat to appoint interim ministers to plug the gap left by the "disengagement" of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from the unity government could lead to a review of donor funding, a highly placed official from a major donor country told IRIN.

"We are still monitoring developments. No decision has been made to appoint acting ministers, but that would certainly send a wrong message, and could get donors who want the situation in Zimbabwe to improve to review their financial commitments to the inclusive government," said the official, who declined to be identified.

The Global Political Agreement (GPA), signed in September 2008, paved the way for the formation of the unity government in February 2009. "When the Global Political Agreement was signed ... we said at the time that we would be looking out to see if the GPA was fully implemented," the official noted.

Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister and MDC leader, withdrew from attending cabinet meetings on 16 October 2009 over Mugabe's procrastination in swearing in provincial governors, while alleging that MDC members and officials faced constant harassment.

The MDC also believes that the continued stay in office of the attorney general and the Reserve Bank Governor - self-admitted allies of Mugabe - is in contravention of the GPA.

After the MDC's disengagement, information minister Webster Shamu said "His Excellency [Mugabe] may have to consider appointing ministers in an acting capacity to key ministries, for the sake of a successful agricultural season and general economic turnaround."

The passage of the unity government has been far from smooth, but the MDC's disengagement represents the most serious breakdown in relations between the partners in the fledgling unity government and its attempt to haul Zimbabwe out of the economic abyss in which nearly 7 million people relied on donor food aid in the first quarter of 2009.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) organ on politics, defence and security will meet on 5 November in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, to discuss developments in Zimbabwe.

The organ's troika of members is comprised of Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, Zambian President Rupiah Banda, and sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, King Mswati III. SADC chairman Joseph Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has already visited Zimbabwe to try to resolve the impasse.

Zimbabwe's finance portfolio has also been the object of an ongoing turf war between the MDC and Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. "Firstly, appointing acting ministers would be illegal and unconstitutional; doing so would be killing the GPA," Finance Minister Tendai Biti told IRIN.

"It would amount to a violation of the Global Political Agreement, which created the transitional inclusive government. It has to be understood that the MDC has only disengaged from ZANU-PF, and not government work. We are all going to our offices to work," he said.

Government work continues  

"Nothing has changed in terms of how we do business; we are coming up with frameworks of introducing good governance and accountability to avoid abuse of funds. The money is stored in a multi-donor basket fund, and there has to be consultation and agreement on how it is spent."

Prof Arthur Mutambara, Deputy Prime Minister and leader of a breakaway MDC faction, told IRIN that Tsvangirai's decision to boycott cabinet could prove counterproductive.

"If decisions are made in cabinet, even if others have boycotted the meeting, they will be binding," he said. "So, what we have been doing is to fight against bad decisions, while acting as the peace-builder between Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe."

dd/go/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86882DAKAR Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Donors have promised US$40 billion in aid to agriculture in developing countries since the Rome “food summit” in 2008, but in some countries the bulk of this aid is uncoordinated, shortsighted and does not support government priorities, says NGO Oxfam. DAKAR Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Donors have promised US$40 billion in aid to agriculture in developing countries since the Rome “food summit” in 2008, but in some countries the bulk of this aid is uncoordinated, shortsighted and does not support government priorities, says NGO Oxfam.

“Technical and financial partners are supporting different projects that are totally disconnected from one another and from the agriculture policy framework set up by the government,” Jean-Denis Crola, author of the report ‘Aid to Agriculture: from promises to reality on the ground’, told IRIN.

“And many of the new interventions do not represent new money, but are financial re-allocations from other sectors,” he said.

Rather than working through governments, most donors and technical partners in the three West African countries Oxfam studied – Burkina Faso, Ghana and Niger – channel agriculture financing through UN agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) or the World Food Programme (WFP), and other international institutions; they also implement projects themselves through consultants, said Oxfam.

Impact

In 2007 in Burkina Faso 27 development donors supported 131 separate agriculture projects, most of which bypassed government structures, Crola told IRIN; in 2008 this had been cut to 80, but this number still overwhelms government administration, he pointed out.

Lack of coordination also weakens governments’ administrative capacity as finance ministries are forced to employ dozens of staff whose sole job is to track and report on a multitude of projects, said Oxfam.

With most projects lasting three to five years, donor timeframes can also stymie long-term planning in government.

But most importantly such policies leave people hungry, as investment in agriculture remains low, Crola said.

In Burkina Faso while the government had stressed the need to streamline agricultural financing through a few grain, produce and livestock cooperatives, the four major agriculture donors – World Bank, Germany, Denmark and Canada – chose to support 30 different networks among them, without sufficient coordination in selecting, Crola said.

As a result some sectors such as sesame, soya, and cowpeas were over-supported while staple foods as rice and maize were under-funded, he said.

“A process”

Emmanuel Nikiema, the World Bank’s programme director in Burkina Faso, told IRIN while there have been problems coordinating in the past, “harmonizing our aid with government policies is now the order of the day for all of the major donors in the country.”

Coordination is a process, and while donors could improve their performance, the government must also fulfill its role by showing strong leadership on agricultural policy, he said.

“We [financial and technical partners] are there to support not to replace the government, and it is up to the government to be at the forefront of the strategy,” he told IRIN.

G8 leaders reiterated the need to coordinate funding when they pledged $20 billion at the September 2009 summit, to help developing countries out of the food security crisis and to support long-term agricultural development.

In September 2008 at a forum on aid effectiveness in Ghana, donors reiterated their commitment to improving the predictability and coordination of aid efforts.

Leadership

Oxfam agrees stronger government leadership is needed. Governments must develop policies, demonstrate better leadership on agriculture and work with the commercial sector to develop stronger regional policies if they are to develop a stronger voice with external donors, says the report.

Many West African governments abandoned agriculture, sidelining it in their national budgets, partly as a result of the Washington Consensus donor strategy.
Between 1995 and 2007 agriculture accounted for less than 5 percent of total official development aid committed to West African states, while about 80 percent of West Africa’s inhabitants depend on agriculture to survive.

Niger and Burkina Faso still have no agricultural policy; their commitments to the sector are spread across several different ministries according to Oxfam’s report.

Opportunity

Donors are improving their coordination and performance in other sectors including health and education, with pooled funds increasingly the norm, said Crola, adding that there is no reason they cannot veer in this direction for agricultural funding.

“The opportunity to change is now while international interest in food security and agricultural development is still a reality,” he told IRIN.

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