Drought
Number of drought victims soars worldwide

afrol.com, 9 August - The number of people being fed by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) due to drought has more than quadrupled in the last four years, the food aid organisation said yesterday. 

WFP reports that more than 100 million people in over 20 countries currently suffer the effects of drought and that the number of affected people the agency now feeds has soared to 16 million this year, from just three million in 1996. 

“We’ve seen an incredible increase in drought-induced hardship over the last decade,” said Francesco Strippoli, WFP’s Senior Humanitarian Advisor. “Today, we’re literally working in every part of the world to provide emergency food aid to people who have lost their crops or livelihoods due to drought.” 

The Horn of Africa remains in the grip of a severe drought with more than 16 million people facing severe food shortages. Kenya, alone, is suffering from one of its worst droughts in recorded history. With a national maize requirement estimated at 3.21 million tons, the country will need to import some 1.4 million tons over the next year. The devastating drought in Central Asian countries including Afghanistan and Tajikistan has spread to the Caucasus, where between 55 and 60 percent of crops in Armenia's mountain regions are at risk of damage.

Drought is currently plaguing countries in Central America and the Caribbean. Crop losses of maize and beans in Honduras are estimated to be between 80 and 90 percent. In Haiti, drought has destroyed at least 33 percent of the current harvest. Other countries seriously affected by drought include the Middle Eastern countries of Jordan, Syria and Iran. 

“The scale of our operations is massive,” said Strippoli. “Moving millions of tons of food around the globe and distributing it in often very insecure and volatile areas in time to save lives is our greatest challenge.” 

In comparative terms, over the 1990s, WFP’s drought-related emergency operations represented 53 percent of the agency’s total responses to natural disasters. The number of drought-related emergencies over this period amounted to 102. This was more than 50 percent higher than food emergencies caused by floods, the next highest percentage. 

Funding for WFP’s drought-related projects for this year alone represent about 20 percent of total emergency requirements. This is an increase of nine percent compared to 1995. Taking into account the steadily increasing global emergency requirements, drought-specific resource requirements have more than doubled in 2000. 

In three of WFP’s most extensive operations – in Ethiopia, Kenya and Afghanistan – the aid agency is currently spending more than $352 million to feed some 12 million people.

Sources: WFP

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