Briefing by Michael Hess,
Assistant Administrator, Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance,
and Jean Jacques Grasse, Deputy Director of the World Food Programme
U.S. and UN Food Relief to Southern Africa
December 19, 2005
Washington Foreign Press Center
Washington, DC
MR. BAILY: Good afternoon and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. This afternoon, we have a briefing on -- normally, we try to have our briefings on stories that are currently in the news. This afternoon, we have a briefing that's on the story, on an initiative, that is not often enough in the news and that is the food situation in Africa, particularly in Southern Africa. So this afternoon we have the Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, Michael Hess, and the Deputy Director of the World Food Programme in Rome, Jean Jacques Grasse, here to brief you on the situation. They'll both have some opening remarks and then be happy to take your questions.
I'd like to remind you to state your name and organization before the questions. Mr. Hess.
MR. HESS: Thank you, Jess. It's great to be here and thank you all for coming. As Jess pointed out, you know, you don't often get good stories and this is a good one because it's a partnership between the U.S. and our great partner, WFP, World Food Programme, on averting a famine in Southern Africa. As you all know, this is a chronic situation in Southern Africa, lots of complications there that have to do with climate conditions, but also chronic poverty and AIDS that is endemic in this part of the world that leads to serious problems almost every year in famine.
As you can see by the chart here on the right, you can see the long span of the famine cycle in the middle of there. May of '05 through April of '06 was the famine period for this and it, obviously, spans a calendar year, but the timeframe. And it's good to look at that and get a perspective on how long it takes to react to these crises. But because of the good efforts of WFP and their planning and the planning by the Food for Peace folks and USAID, we were able to get the food there in a timely manner to avert a crisis this year.
We just announced that today, we are contributing another 68,000 metric tons. That will bring our total up to 370,000 metric tons of food going to the region. That will take care of -- we estimate there are 12.5 million people who are at risk during this crisis. And if you can help that many people out and avert a crisis and that's very important. There are 10 million alone in just Zimbabwe and Malawi, so if you can help that many people out and avert a crisis; it's a very good thing. It's through the partnership that we have the WFP and their mechanisms that really make this happen.
The charts on the left over there show the pipeline. What you ought to know about the pipeline, you have ups and downs. The downs are not good things. The flat lines are good things because that means the pipeline's full then. And if you look at that fairly closely, as of December, the pipelines are full everywhere but in Zambia. So that means the pipelines are full and the food is flowing and people are not starving in Southern Africa right now. So it's good to know. It's a good partnership and it's good working with Jean Jacques and his team.
Jean Jacques.
MR. GRASSE: Thank you. Glad to be here today, too. The U.S. is by far our largest donor, worldwide. And in Southern Africa, it has been in the last few years and again this year, by far again, the largest donor to the World Food Programme there. We don't feed everybody, obviously. The World Food Programme has some people it feeds; others are being taken care of by NGOs and the U.S. has a very large program also with a number of important NGOs in the region. We will have to feed between now and March-April, particularly, about 9 million people.
You know, Southern Africa is probably a crisis, which unfortunately, is not going to go away that rapidly. It has had repeated droughts over the years, but the combination of drought, HIV/AIDS and governance issues really makes it one of the most vulnerable regions in the world.
Now, if you want to understand what kind of problems we are having to cope there, in that part of the world, you have life expectancy, which at best is 42 years and that's in Mozambique; at worst, it's about 36 years, 34 years, 37 years in Zambia, Zimbabwe. I mean, it's incredible. These numbers haven't been seen since the Middle Ages in Europe, where life expectancy is down to the 30s. It was, in countries like Zimbabwe, 60-something, 62 I believe, only ten years ago. Now, what does that tell us?
What it tells us that the HIV/AIDS is still doing major -- it's creating major havoc in the country. And that doesn't mean only fewer people to feed; that means, fewer people who can be farmers or fewer people who can be traditional farmers, doing the type of physical work that is expected from a farmer. Many of them are just too weak nowadays to continue to do normal farming and therefore it's not a crisis that is going to disappear in the coming few years, unfortunate. Even if the weather improves and they don't suffer from the type of drought that they have been suffering recently, it will take time before the HIV/AIDS pandemic does revert itself to something more acceptable, as it has in some countries like Uganda. But we are not yet there.
MR. BAILY: With that, if you have your questions, raise your hand and we will bring you a microphone.
QUESTION: Hi. I'm Kay Maddux from Voice of America. I have a question about how you collect your figures. Do you do it in concert with the government? And particularly, in the case of Zimbabwe, which has been very reluctant to allow in international help and of course, recently with their demolition campaign, how reliable are your figures, especially in Zimbabwe?
MR. HESS: Jean Jacques and WFP just signed an MOU with the governments, so I'll let him talk about that one.
MR. GRASSE: We have, how shall I say, we have good working relations with the government in the sense that they have agreed with us on how we can do food distributions through, in our case, mostly NGOs, mostly international NGOs, so that we know where the food goes and there is a clear agreement with the government that they won't interfere in our food distribution. So the method of distribution has been settled now in this Memorandum of Understanding that we have signed last November.
Now, the numbers are perhaps difficult to be absolutely certain about and I'm talking about particularly now food production because the government has not allowed this year that the classical FAO -- that's the Food Aid Organization -- and WFP together normally carry out crop assessment missions and food needs mission. This mission hasn't taken place this year. It is, however, our estimation and certainly shared with U.S.-based organizations in the region that the total cereal production in Zimbabwe will perhaps be around 600,000 metric tons this year. And that is, of course, significantly lower than the actual needs of Zimbabwe, which explains why we will have to bring in food, which will probably reach about 4 million people.
So the people in need are numbers that we feel comfortable with because those are people that have been identified through various mechanisms of targeting vulnerability assessment, et cetera. The production numbers are the ones on which we have to make what we think are reasonable guesses.
QUESTION: Can I ask a follow-up on that? I'm sorry. May I ask a follow-up? Are you comfortable after the comments of Mr. Mugabe, after Jan Egeland's trip, he pretty much ripped him to shreds for describing the humanitarian situation there? Are you comfortable that once the food aid gets in that it will be distributed properly to those in need? And also, on your chart, it looks like Zimbabwe is suffering worse than Malawi, and between the two, out of those six countries, actually which is the worse off for you?
MR. GRASSE: Number one, I think that President Mugabe is used to special envoys. He has also received a number of times Jim Morris, who is the Executive Director of the WFP, but is also a Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs for Southern Africa. And he visits regularly the region. He has frequent contacts with the President. There is no, how should I say, public descriptions of any sort that would result in press or attention that would go beyond the real food needs of the country. And that's what we try to focus on so that we don't create unnecessary problems and that we focus on the actual needs of the people and the conditions under which we can reach them. And we are totally sure that our food will reach the people we have identified as being targeted recipients of our food aid. Food is not distributed through government officers; it's distributed with NGOs, its churches and to exactly the group that we have targeted.
QUESTION: My name is Deon Lamprecht from Media 24 in South Africa. If you could look at one of the tables in this information piece provided here of the percentage of food distributed, Zimbabwe is the lowest of only 28 percent of food aid available distributed. Why is that? Why the low distribution percentage?
MR. GRASSE: Can you repeat that? Zimbabwe's shown as -- I don't know which numbers you are referring to. That must have been --
MR. HESS: I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is our number. Have you got that
chart, Jennifer? And what was the question? (Inaudible).
QUESTION: Page two.
MR. HESS: There are only 28 percent has been distributed?
QUESTION: Yes. That's right and which is the lowest of all the countries indicated in the table. And I was wondering why that figure is so low.
MR. HESS: He's referring to April to October. Twenty-eight percent. And you won't find the agreement in November.
Part of this relates to the fact that the MOU between WFP and the Government of Zimbabwe wasn't signed until November. And if you look at the date on this, this goes through October. So we were having a lot of discussions, obviously, with the Government of Zimbabwe and so were the NGOs at the time. But I think it was the signing of the MOU that has allowed WFP the opportunity to start distributing more widely and through other partners, especially in the rural areas and that makes the difference.
QUESTION: Yes.
MR. GRASSE: But also, I must say that we should not forget that the moment where the food distributions are the most needed, are precisely between December and March, just prior to the harvest, so this is the critical hunger season now.
MR. HESS: Yeah, when we look at this hunger season, that's for the whole region and Zimbabwe is a little different than other countries, which makes it a little different, too.
QUESTION: Okay. Would part of the problem be that before this recent agreement, there was a holdup or a backlog in distribution because of disagreements of the government, how it should be done?
MR. GRASSE: As long as we do not agree exactly on in which areas we distribute what, through whom, and with the blessing to be able to do that, we can distribute -- being blind about what's happening. So that was a clear condition not only for ourselves but also for many of our donors that would not otherwise come forward and give us the huge amount of money that we need or food that we need if we didn't have clear, agreed distribution plans and methods.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR. BAILY: Other questions? Yes.
QUESTION: Manelisi Dubase, SABC. Would you describe the situation, the food insecurity in Southern Africa, but generally, those countries you mentioned
-- Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia -- as a crisis or perhaps it's just an emergency situation? How would you describe the situation?
MR. HESS: Well, obviously we've averted the crisis this year. It's a chronic problem. As we pointed out, there are chronic issues in this part of the world involving crime, poverty, the high AIDS rate, obviously leading to the high death rate, and government policies and practices to include some trade practices and we consider these chronic problems. But obviously, the crisis has been averted, so there is no crisis this year and that's important because of the mobilization of other donors through the presidential initiative in the G-8 in the summertime. Other donors have stepped up. The fact that they have pledged money to WFP, which has allowed them to buy food in the local markets, distributed earlier, has averted a crisis. So you certainly could not call it a crisis now and that's good.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR. BAILY: No further questions? Thank you very much for coming.
MR. HESS: Excellent. Thank you all for coming.
MR. GRASSE: Thank you.
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