POVERTY: YEMEN: Soaring food, fuel prices hit poor hardest

SANA'A, 6 July 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Hugh Macleod/IRIN
Recent studies say wide-scale starvation looms over millions of Yemenis due to price hikes (file photo)

Motorbike taxi driver Abdulkarim Mohammed has been finding it increasingly difficult over the past few months to buy sufficient food for his eight-member family in Yemen.
"Before the revolution, I needed only YR500 (US$2.2) to buy bread for the whole family… but now YR1,000 ($4.4) is not enough," he told IRIN in the capital, Sana’a. "Also, I rarely find fuel for my motorbike.”
By “revolution” he means the series of countrywide protests which started nearly five months ago against the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and which have left hundreds of protesters dead or injured, and displaced tens of thousands of civilians.
The unrest has pushed up prices. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the cost of bread has risen by 50 percent in the past few months. There is also concern that the currency could collapse, pushing another 15 percent of Yemenis below the poverty line.
Statistics indicate that one in three people are food insecure and under-nourished, and more than 50 percent of children are stunted, OCHA said in a 1 July report.
Economists predict the situation could get worse if Yemen's food reserves run out in the coming two months and the government fails to pay staff salaries.
“The current youth revolt may lead to another revolt by the hungry,” Mohammed al-Fandi, head of the non-profit Yemen Centre for Strategic Studies warned.

Increased malnutrition?
In the last few months, many poor families have faced increasing malnutrition because they are unable to buy staple food, according to local think-tank the Studies and Economic Media Center.
Nine million Yemenis, it said in a 4 July report, were having difficulty meeting minimum food needs. “The prices of food staples such as flour, sugar and milk have increased 40-60 percent while ongoing unrest has caused unprecedented shortages in fuel supplies, the price of which increased by 900 percent in the past five months,” it said.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP), in a recent assessment, found that four of the country’s 21 governorates - Rayma, Amran, Hajja, Ibb - were the most food insecure.
“Through focus group discussions, it was found out that food prices are higher in rural areas… most likely because of the transportation cost which has risen due to the fuel scarcity,” a WFP briefing note said in Mid-June.
“In Yemen, 96 percent of households are net buyers. Thus the poorest households are hit hardest by the recent price increases... The poorest have now opted for negative coping mechanisms, such as reducing the number of meals, no consumption of meat or fish, and even fasting," it added. "In light of how many Yemenis already spend 30-35 percent of their daily income on bread, the inflation of bread prices could prove daunting for the food security of the poorest families."

More people displaced
In the south, more people have recently been displaced, and currently more than 15,610 internally displaced persons are in Aden, about 11,890 in Lahj and an unconfirmed 15,000 in Abyan. Some 90 percent of those in Aden, according to OCHA, depend on donations by host communities to meet their daily food needs.
Media reports suggest the Yemeni economy lost around US$5 billion during the first three months of the political crisis and is now teetering on the brink of collapse. The situation has been compounded by a crippling fuel shortage.
Ahmad Abdulwahabi, a nutritionist in Sana’a, said increased food shortages would mean lower calorie intake for many people. “Low calorie intake causes anaemia and damages vital organs such as the kidneys, liver and heart, as the body normally burns through muscle tissue if there are not enough calories,” Abdulwahabi told IRIN.
Mohammed al-Baadani, a wheat dealer in Sana’a, called for a compromise between the ruling party and opposition to stabilize the economy and bring food prices down.
“Parties to the conflict should consider the suffering of the poor," he said. "It is the poor who are bearing the brunt of political turmoil in the country.”

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93158

MALNUTRITION: KENYA-SOMALIA: Drought decimates livestock, hits incomes

NAIROBI, 4 July 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Umuro Godana/PISP : Pasture, grazing land and migration routes traditionally used in emergencies are no longer available (file photo)

A severe drought ravaging the arid and semi-arid parts of the Horn of Africa region is threatening the livelihoods of pastoral communities, with massive livestock deaths recorded amid an increase in deadly conflict over resources.
Pastoralists depend on livestock for all their basic needs and any losses undermine their economic and food security. Livestock sales are often used to buy grain and lack of milk and meat contribute to high malnutrition levels.
"The value of livestock – people’s main assets in many of the worst affected areas – has plummeted and livestock markets have collapsed, so people have much less purchasing power than before. People’s livelihoods have already been decimated, but there is now also a real risk of large-scale loss of life,” warns Oxfam in a 1 July statement, adding that in some parts of Kenya and Ethiopia, at least 60 percent of the herds have perished.
The perception that emergency relief often does not appreciate the importance of saving livestock assets in emergencies has prompted the development of initiatives such as the Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS), the equivalent of SPHERE in humanitarian circles. LEGS aims at improving relief programming with communities that rely heavily on livestock for their social and economic well-being.
According to a December 2010 International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) report, interventions to support livestock, such as supplementary feeding and commercial destocking (among recommended actions in LEGS), should be implemented before livestock are so weak they die.
In the 2008-2009 Kenyan droughts, truckloads of dead and dying heads of livestock were common.
“Supplementary feeding needs to target breeding stocks with sufficient time so that they stay healthy," states the ILRI report. "Conflict resolution to enable pastoralists to move to key grazing areas needs to be done in advance, before large numbers of animals need pasture. Late interventions are costly and unhelpful."

Falling prices
The weak condition of livestock has meant that the surviving cattle, for instance, have a far lower market value than normal – up to 40 percent less in parts of Kenya, says Oxfam, adding that “pastoralists in Somalia have also reported that their animals are now worth less than half of their value in late 2010”.
An oversupply of cattle in parts of Somalia due to destocking and restocking of small ruminants through cattle selling in Garissa, Kenya, meant that cattle prices were still 21 percent less in Somalia than in 2010, stated a 20 June Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit – Somalia (FSNAU) brief.
Increased camel exports - 7 percent of total livestock from January to May compared with 2 percent over the same period in 2010 at the Bossaso port - is an additional indicator of stress selling in drought-affected pastoral areas, notes FSNAU.
Northern Kenya, Somalia and southern Ethiopia, which are predominantly pastoral regions, are among the areas most affected by the drought. In Somalia, at least 65 percent of the population depends on the livestock sector; because of the effects of the drought, more people are sliding into food hunger and poverty.

 Photo: Mohamed Gaarane/IRIN
In some parts of Kenya and Ethiopia, at least 60 percent of the herds have perished (file photo)

FSNAU estimates that at least 2.85 million people are facing food insecurity in Somalia, a 19 percent increase from January. In Kenya, the food-insecure population is estimated at 3.5 million.
Large livestock migration from northeastern Kenya and Somalia's arid areas of southern Gedo to Juba and Bay regions in southern Somalia may lead to early depletion of pasture and water in these regions, according to FSNAU.

Destocking
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA Kenya), subsidizing livestock markets, commercial livestock destocking and destocking for meat sales remain priority concerns in northern Kenya.
A government-run buy-back programme has been halted in some parts due to a lack of funds.
"The amount of money allocated was small considering the large population of livestock in Isiolo, Marsabit and Moyale," Zachary Nyanga, the Upper Eastern director of livestock, told IRIN.
Nyanga said KSh37.7 million (about US$419,000) allocated in April had been used to buy 13,000 goats and sheep from herders but the funds ran out in May. He said the programme would resume once additional funding, which has since been allocated, was received.
According to a local aid worker, who requested anonymity, government and aid organizations’ activities in livestock emergency response had to be coordinated. "The whole [off-take] programme was a failure from the beginning; the government was buying animals at a higher price than us,” the aid worker said.
The government was offering about KSh3,000 ($34) for a goat/sheep, while NGOs were offering half that.
In addition, the programme did not target cattle, which are worst affected by the drought.
"My intention was to sell my 40 [head of] cattle, save the money in a bank and then buy livestock [with the money] after it rains," said Peter Lepertet from the Wamba area of Samburu in the north. “I was also only allowed to sell four goats but I have more than 150 [sheep and goats]; it is meaningless.”
Wario Jirma, a resident from Marsabit district, northern Kenya, said: “We are losing livestock, [our] source of livelihood. The issue is very serious.”
In some areas, pasture, grazing land and migration routes that have traditionally been used in emergencies are no longer available, having been sold off, or allocated for tourism and large-scale agriculture. This has undermined pastoralists’ ability to cope with recurrent drought, notes Oxfam.

Clashes and displacement
In Kenya, at least 113 people were killed in clashes over resources between January and end-May, against 106 deaths in the same period in 2008, 138 in 2009, and 68 in 2010. According to OCHA Kenya, the high 2008 and 2009 killings occurred during above-normal dry conditions, similar to the present situation.
Conflict- and drought-related displacement has also affected education. At least 10 schools in Isiolo, Samburu and Turkana areas in the north have been closed.
"Hundreds of children have quit learning, many have moved with their parents to look for pasture, some have been displaced by a lack of water,” said Dade Boru, the Isiolo Teachers’ Union Executive Secretary. Livestock deaths and the resultant financial losses have meant parents are unable to raise school fees.
A local leader from the Oldonyiro area of Isiolo, Nicholas Lesokoye, said insecurity had affected business activities too and there were fears of more conflict. "We have received reports that a large number of armed herders have arrived and are still streaming in towards Isiolo," he said.
With drought known to be an ever-present hazard in the dry lands of East and Central Africa, relief programming should focus on the whole drought cycle, including normal and recovery periods, rather than just alert and emergency, states the ILRI report. This is because “any given area or community is... always in some phase related to current, recent or impending drought”.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93142

POVERTY: PAKISTAN: Tough road to post-flood recovery

MUZAFFARGARH, 8 April 2011 (IRIN) -

 Photo: Reliefweb: The floods affected several districts including Azad Kashmir, Baluchistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab

 Eight months after floods forced Saleemullah Adeel and his family to abandon their home in Pakistan’s southern Punjab city of Muzaffargarh, the road to recovery has proved rough for this landless farmer.
The wheat he planted on 10 acres (four hectares) leased from a large landowner at an annual fee of US$118 per acre (0.4 hectares) is doing well, and Saleemullah hopes for a good crop because weather conditions so far have been good. Near his house, which is now partially repaired, there are neat rows of vegetables, and a few hens feed in the yard. But he has little else to be happy about.
“I bought wheat seed and fertilizer after selling the jewellery we had purchased for my elder daughter’s wedding, which was scheduled for this month,” Saleemullah told IRIN. “Now it has been postponed [yet] I have used up all my savings and my two sons, who worked on fish farms, have lost their jobs.”
The July-September 2010 floods destroyed hundreds of fish farms in the Muzaffargarh area, according to media reports, leaving many, like Saleemullah’s sons, out of work.
But Saleemullah’s problems do not end here. Since he did not own the land he farmed, he was not awarded compensation by the provincial government, which gave landowners seed and fertilizer. “The landlord we lease from claimed he needed [the seed and fertilizer] for his own lands,” he said.

Cotton crop destroyed
Other people, too, have suffered. “I have earned nothing for months because the cotton crop was destroyed, and factories which crush the cotton seed to extract oil did not employ us this time as they usually do,” said Ahsan Akhtar, 30, whose wife was not hired this year as a cotton-picker.
Across the country, people have continued to live with losses incurred during the floods, even as they attempt to recover, but this is proving tough. “My youngest child, aged six months, has had diarrhoea for nearly a month,” said Sanober Bibi, 25. “The health workers who used to visit early on after the floods no longer come, and the medicine given by the local midwife did him no good at all.” There is no clinic in their village.
On 6 April Neva Khan, country director of the UK Charity Oxfam, pointed fingers at the government, telling reporters that a delay on the part of the government to provide a “reconstruction strategy” had resulted in delays in urgent rebuilding and recovery work. In some cases this had “barely started even eight months after the disaster”, he said.
A government official refuted that claim. "The rehabilitation phase was started some months ago," Ahmed Kamal, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority, told IRIN. A Sindh government official, who preferred anonymity, said a "desperate lack of funds" was holding up recovery in the province, but "progress was slowly being made".

Lack of shelter, drinking water
Last year, the law was changed with many functions previously conducted by the centre, devolved to provinces. This has complicated reconstruction planning, aid workers said. For example, in many flood-hit areas in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan, people still lack shelter.
According to a survey conducted for Oxfam by the Pakistani NGO Free and Fair Election Network, 70 percent of flood-affected people are also seeking jobs. “People want jobs, not handouts,” Khan added.
On 31 March, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the floods, which affected more than 18 million people, had left behind a wave of sickness and destruction that has still to recede, even as the water dries up. An OCHA fact sheet said shelter and clean drinking water were still required. Many people were also still suffering from diseases.
In many flood-hit areas, pools of water in low-lying areas have become rubbish dumps. “This adds to the spread of disease, and dirty water sometimes contaminates clean supplies used for drinking purposes,” Rafia Ali, a doctor, said.
“The floods have vanished off TV screens; only limited amounts of aid are reaching survivors - but the havoc caused by one of the biggest natural disasters in the country’s history continues, with no end yet in sight,” he added.
That view was shared by Ibrahim Mughul, chairman of Pakistan’s Agriculture Council. "The agricultural losses caused by the floods were devastating,” he told IRIN. “Recovery will take a long time.”


A man wades through flooded fields in Reikhbaghwala village in Pakistan's Punjab province


http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92414

MALNUTRITION: NIGER: it's still a problem

 Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN
Ayesha Yaou with her family’s evening meal

MAGARIA, 6 April 2011 (IRIN) - The evening meal will be stewed leaves tasting somewhat like spinach, which the women pick every morning, yet crops were standing tall before the leafhoppers flew into Zinder in Niger and devoured anything green. The official response to a region on the edge of survival has been slow, but then the women went to see the Prefect.
It is after 6.30 in the evening in sandy and hot Dan Gouchy Haoussa, a village about a 1,000km east of Niamey, capital of Niger, and about 20km from the border with Nigeria. Nine children - the youngest about four years old and the oldest a teenager doing his homework - sit around a pot that Salamatou, one of their two mothers, has placed on the fire.
The stewed leaves of a wild bush called leptadenia hastate will be served when the tenth child, who is queuing at the only tap in the village, returns with water. It will be the family's first meal of the day.
More than 200,000 people in the district of Magaria have been living on meals like this for almost six months, but aid agencies warn that the worst is yet to come.
The traditional lean season, when farmers run out of previously harvested stocks of staple cereals like millet and sorghum, only starts in May, said Sylvain Musafiri, humanitarian officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
It will be some time before the rains come, new crops can be planted, then harvested, and there will be food again. Help will not be on the way anytime soon. Pleas for assistance, sent to Niamey by a variety of local authorities, have so far gone unanswered.
The national administration is in transition - a military junta-backed government makes way for an elected civilian government this week - but Musafiri said he was concerned that an adequate response by the authorities would take longer.
Mamamadou Baraze, governor of Zinder Region, where Magaria is located, told aid workers he feared the situation could get worse than the crisis in 2010 if help did not arrive in time.
How did Salamatou's family and the residents of Dan Gouchy Haoussa end up in this situation? IRIN found a chasm between the people of rural Niger and the policy-makers and implementers in Niamey, but also discovered a group of people led by women fighting enormous odds for the right to food.
There is a strong case for the incoming government to address the structural causes of food insecurity in Niger: a rapidly expanding population, lack of rural infrastructure and agricultural support to boost food production in a country increasingly affected by uncertain weather.
A recent food security conference in Niamey discussed the gap that needs to be bridged if the nation's development goals are to be achieved, but which keeps getting wider because the country constantly has to tackle emergencies.

Was it the rains?
Niger produces about four million tons of cereals, so it has to import about 20 percent of its cereal needs, 10 percent of which is brought in by traders and the remainder by aid agencies, said Prof Maxime Banoin, an agronomist.
Magaria district is a tiny green belt in the Zinder Region along Niger's border with Nigeria, where the people, mainly small-scale farmers, produce crops of millet and sorghum that account for most of the semi-arid region's cereal production when rain falls for the expected two-month period.
"In 2010, the rains were good our crops were going very well," said Abdou Gibada, the headman of Dan Gouchy Haoussa. The men in the villages constructed additional storage bins in anticipation of a bumper harvest.
When my father was alive, the produce from the land was sufficient to feed all of us [including my two wives and five children], but when he died, the small patch of land I inherited was not adequate
Banoin noted that in 2010 the country had produced five million tons of cereals, including millet, sorghum and cowpeas - more than enough for its needs until the next harvest in 2011.
Gibada holds his composure as he talks about the misfortune that struck them in August 2010, when hordes of leafhoppers (of the family cicadellidae) flew in and ate the standing crops in more than 300 villages across the district.
Nouri Habsou, the agricultural extension worker based in the neighbouring village of Dan Tchiou, had not seen crop destruction on this scale in more than 20 years of experience. "I was helpless; I had no pesticides to offer." She informed her superiors in Magaria town, who alerted Niamey.
Disbelieving authorities in the capital dismissed the calls for help. "They said this particular species of the insect, which usually attacks sorghum plants, is never known to have attacked millet," said Ahmadou Ama, head of agriculture in Magaria.
Months later, towards the end of 2010, an agriculture official turned up to make an assessment. "He was shocked by what he saw, and in subsequent investigations agriculture scientists in Niamey have offered us a possible explanation for the change in the behaviour of the insect," said Ama.
"They said the rains were unseasonably heavy, which led to a very good millet crop attracting the insects, who would have usually gone for the sorghum crops, which would normally have been standing then." The explanations made their way back to Magaria, but no aid.

 Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN
Elders of Dan Gouchy Haussa: the villagers have struggled to be heard

Ayesha Yaou and the women
In the affected villages people had already eaten the previous harvest's reserves and started crossing the border to Nigeria in search of food. In October 2010 an assessment by local authorities found that more than 15 percent had fled with their families, and the household head of almost 50 percent of families had migrated.
By December all the able-bodied men in Dan Gouchy Haoussa had gone to Nigeria. The women, children and elderly, left behind, struggled on until February 2011.
"We just could not sit and wait to die, we had to get help," said Ayesha Yaou, 33, who has seven children. She decided to organize the women.
"Each family contributed 50 CFA [about US$0.11] towards the fare to hire a taxi to Magaria [town] to make representation to the Prefect [administrative head] of Magaria district." They warned him that mass migration might be imminent.
"We were moved by the plight - we calmed the people, tried to convince them not to leave,"´ said the Prefect, Inoussa Garba. "I then managed to get some rice, maize and millet for the people, but it was not enough."
In March 2011, Garba approached UN agencies and international and national NGOs working in the neighbouring town of Zinder for help. He said Care International, the aid NGO, would begin a cash-for-work programme in a few villages in April, and the World Food Programme (WFP) intended to start blanket feeding in the area but only in May, when the traditional lean season began.
Staple grains are readily available in the markets along the road between Magaria and Zinder, but few farmers have the money to buy. Most have eaten or sold their livestock, although some still have a few goats, chickens or ducks.
The children in Magaria village were healthy because the medical NGO, Médecins Sans Frontières-Switzerland, had been treating them, said Ayesha Yaou.
Olivier Bonnet, project manager of MSF-Switzerland in Magaria, said their organization, whose mandate was to respond to emergencies, had been forced into a developmental role because of a lack of resources at the local level and was providing some free essential medicines, and training personnel at primary healthcare centres.

Returning men
Violent flare-ups linked to the upcoming elections in Nigeria forced some of the men to return at the beginning of April 2011, but they brought little or no money.
In Nigeria many saved rice or millet from their meals, or odd bits of food they received while begging. The food was dried in the sun and sent back to their families with returning Nigeriens. At home the dried food is soaked in water and cooked with the leaves.
"There is no charge for this service [carrying food]," said Zakaria Yaou, 25, who came back to his village, Kinoma, in the last week of March. "One day the carrier might need to ask me to take food for his family." He spent three months in Nigeria ferrying water in a cart, but managed to bring home only about 3,000 CFA (almost $7) for his five children and two wives.
A big family has its drawbacks - one with 12 members would need at least 1,000 CFA (about $2) worth of millet every day. "When my father was alive, the produce from the land was sufficient to feed all of us [including my two wives and five children], but when he died, the small patch of land I inherited was not adequate," said Yaou.
Sanousi Atta, a professor of agriculture who led discussions on food supply at the conference in Niamey, identified large families, which split the limited ancestral agricultural land into plots as small as two hectares, as the biggest obstacle to achieving food insecurity in Niger.
The villagers in Kinoma do not want to talk about family planning, but IRIN met a group of women from Yaouri Kaba, a village near Magaria town, who said their local primary health centre was offering information on contraception.

Next season?
Ama, the head of agriculture in Magaria, said the rainy season was approaching and they needed a supply of seeds and fertilizer as incentives to make the demoralized men stay to plant for the next season, "otherwise we will enter a cycle of endless emergency".
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said it intended distributing seeds ahead of the rainy season, which usually starts sometime in May or June.
Fertilizers are imported into the land-locked country mainly from Nigeria. The price of a 50kg bag used for growing millet is about 13,000 CFA ($30) and the ideal amount is about 100kg per hectare, but in Niger affordability limits the average application to just 2kg per hectare.
But for now, if anyone is listening, said Garba, the Prefect of Magaria, "We need food most urgently."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92387

POVERTY: NAMIBIA: Floods cause an emergency

 Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN; Flooding in January 2010

JOHANNESBURG, 1 April 2011 (IRIN) - Namibia has declared a state of emergency in response to widescale flooding in the north that has claimed 62 lives since January 2011.
"The most severe flooding is occurring in the regions of Oshana, Ohangwena, Omusati and Oshikoto, which form the Cuvelai Basin," said a situation report by the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator on 30 March 2011.
The Cuvelai Basin, in northern Namibia, is one of the country's most densely populated regions, as well as one of its poorest.
"However, surrounding areas are also being affected, specifically Caprivi and Kavango. An estimated 62 people have died. In Oshakati town, in Oshana region, an estimated 5,000 people are already being housed in relocation sites, and this number is increasing," the report noted.
"Following weeks of heavy rain, water levels in northern Namibia are already 30cm to 40cm higher than they were in 2009, when a flood emergency was also declared."
The Namibia Meteorological Service has forecast more rain for the central and northern parts of the country next week, and the situation is expected to be compounded by "a new flood wave" approaching the Cuvelai Basin, beginning on 1 April.
The government has set aside about US$4.4 million for its response to the floods, but allocation of the funds has not yet been decided.
The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) has sourced US$328,000 from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the local Red Cross in providing "assistance to 2,000 families in the northern regions of Caprivi, Kavango, Ohangwena, Omusati and Oshana, as well as in the southern region of Karas, which was affected by flooding earlier in the season," the report said.
Preliminary assessments showed that the priority requirements were food, shelter, transport and education. Over 100,000 learners in 324 schools were affected by flooding, of which 163 were closed, and 22 health clinics were either submerged or completely surrounded by water.

Southern Africa
In the past few months many countries in the region have been afflicted by flooding. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted in its Southern Africa flood and cyclone update on 30 March 2011 that according to media reports, the Cunene provincial government, in southern Angola, was airlifting medical supplies to areas cut off by floodwater.
"The government has also started building dykes and hydraulic systems around Ondjiva [capital of Cunene Province] to ensure that the flooding that has affected the city for three successive rainfall seasons does not recur," the OCHA update said.
Flooding in Angola has caused the deaths of 113 people in 2011, displaced about 35,000 people and destroyed nearly 5,000 homes, OCHA said.
Recent floods in South Africa killed 91 people, and 34 died in Madagascar, mainly in the flooding caused by Cyclone Bingiza, which struck the Indian Ocean island on 14 February 2011.
In contrast, parts of Zimbabwe have suffered an unseasonal dry spell that is expected to have a severe impact on the food insecure country's main harvest, which starts in April.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92343

POVERTY: SOMALIA: Drought-displaced "in tens of thousands"

HARGEISA/NAIROBI, 30 March 2011 (IRIN) -  Photo: Mohamed Amin Jibril/IRIN: "There is not a single region from the south to the north that is not suffering [from drought],” Abdi Haji Gobdon, spokesman for Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), told IRIN

With drought spreading to almost all regions of Somalia, officials and aid workers have expressed concern for those affected, saying drought was now a major cause of displacement.
"Drought, not insecurity, is now the main reason for new displacement in Somalia," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA Somalia) said in a March update. "More than 52,000 people have been displaced due to drought since 1 December 2010, many of them moving to urban areas in search of assistance."
In particular, the capital, Mogadishu, had experienced an increased influx of drought-affected pastoralists, said OCHA.
"Although migration of people and livestock is not unusual during the dry season, this appears to be the first time ever pastoralists and their livestock have migrated into the capital, a situation that portrays the severity of the drought situation in the country," OCHA said.
Abdi Haji Gobdon, spokesman for Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), told IRIN on 30 March: "The drought is spreading and getting worse. We are getting reports not only of livestock dying but people too.
"There is not a single region from the south to the north that is not suffering,” he said.

Aid appeal
Gedo in the southwest, parts of southern regions and the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, as well as central Somali regions, are the worst affected, according to Gobdon.
"Livestock are dying in their thousands, with families losing everything," he said, adding that the drought had forced many pastoralists into camps for the displaced. "They have lost everything and they think they may get help if they reach the camps."
Gobdon said the TFG could not address the situation alone and appealed to the international community for assistance.
"The problem with this drought is how long it has been going on," he said.
Gu rains should have started in most parts of the country. Gobdon said: "In a good year, it should be raining by now, but we have not seen a drop yet."
Targeting livelihoods
In response to the drought, the Common Humanitarian Fund for Somalia allocated US$4.5 million in March in emergency funding, targeting agriculture and livelihoods; water, sanitation and hygiene.
In the self-declared republic of Somaliland, more than four months of drought have led to disease outbreaks and severe water shortages, with government officials appealing for help for the most drought-affected populations.
"The government of Somaliland has appealed for support; so far we have collected about $500,000 from the public, which we spent on water-trucking to the drought-affected in remote areas," Hussein Abdi Du'alle, Somaliland's Minister for Water and Minerals, told a press conference in the capital, Hargeisa.
"Initially, only three regions were affected but now the drought has reached everywhere," Mohamed Muse Awale, the chairman of Somaliland's National Environmental Research and Disaster Preparedness Commission, said.
Mohamed Abdillahi, an elder in Hudun, 83km northeast of Las-anod district in Sool region, told IRIN: "The biggest problem is water shortages; water is trucked from Burou in Togdheer region, 260-270km away, and its price keeps rising. For example, a barrel [200l] of water was only $8 three months ago, now it is $15."

Deaths reported
In Sool region, eastern Somaliland, officials have reported four deaths following an outbreak of diarrhoea. Ali Bile, head of Awr-Bogeys health post in Sool, 50km northeast of Las-anod, said all four deaths - a man and three children - occurred in the past week.
Ali Bulale, mayor of Hudun district, said at least 40 people in the district had contracted diarrhoea, mostly children.
"The district was one of the few places which enjoyed the Deyr [long] rains; this caused many people from Sanag, Sool, Togdheer and even from Puntland to gather here in search of pasture," Bulale said. "Now nothing of the pasture is left."
Ahmed Abdi Bile, coordinator of the Red Crescent in Somaliland, said: "There are six mobile health-sector teams giving food to malnourished children in the regions of Sool, Sanag and Sahel. With the collaboration of UNICEF [UN Children's Fund], there are also seven more teams doing the same job in the regions of Sool, Sahel, Togdher, Awdal and Sanag."
Mark Bowden, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, has called for humanitarian access to support Somalis affected by drought.
"I am extremely concerned about the impact of the current drought on the well-being of children, women and the general population in Somalia," he said in a statement. "Severe water shortages require collective efforts and further cooperation at all levels to deliver a well-coordinated response to mitigate the consequences of the drought on the lives of the Somali population."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92323

POVERTY: KENYA: Act now to mitigate drought effects

 Photo: Ann Weru/IRIN: On the water trail...again

NAIROBI/ISIOLO, 19 January 2011 (IRIN) - Kenya can best mitigate the devastating effects of recurrent drought by strengthening the livestock sector so that it becomes a viable money-based economy, and improving pastoral food and water security, say aid officials.
“Responding to drought has largely remained a reactive mechanism over the years,” Enrico Eminae, Action Aid Kenya’s Northeast Regional Coordinator, told IRIN. “There is also a lack of a coordinated approach by CSOs [civil society organizations] and government in addressing drought-related issues at all levels.”

According to the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) Secretary-General, Abbas Gullet, drought mitigation should focus on addressing vulnerability factors through activities such as dam construction and investments in irrigated farming in marginal areas.
The prevailing drought is expected to hit an estimated 1.8 million people, says the KRCS, mostly pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and those in marginal agricultural areas in the Coast, Eastern, North Eastern and the North Rift of Kenya.
In the northern Isiolo, Marsabit, Moyale and Samburu districts, at least 150,000 people urgently need food aid, most of them women, children and the elderly. Long distances to relief food centres and the inability to secure manual work have added to their vulnerability.
"The situation is tough, but most families have taken different steps to cope with the hardships. Some are skipping meals; some have taken their children to school so that they can get food under the school-feeding programme. In some cases, families are [eating] wild fruits," Bitacha Sora, a KRCS officer in the north, said.
The story of drought and famine is almost becoming a cliché in Kenya
Food and milk prices have risen, driven by reduced availability as herders migrate. A lack of water for domestic and livestock use is also forcing residents to rely on water vendors, who are charging exorbitant prices - 60 shillings (US$0.75) per 20-litre water can.

Conflict concerns
In the coastal Tana River region, drought could lead to conflict between residents and migrating livestock herders, some of whom have come to the more fertile Tana Delta area from northeast Kenya and neighbouring parts of Somalia, warned the Assistant Minister for Information and Communication, Dhado Godana.
"We have lost most of our livestock due to the lack of pasture and water," Abdallah Musa, a herder in Tana River’s Bangale area, told IRIN.

On 14 January the KRCS launched a KSh1.5 billion ($18.75 million) appeal for about 1.8 million people over six months. The response will focus on water provision and livestock destocking programmes - an estimated 20 million heads of livestock are judged at risk.
“Water trucking is no real solution and it is very costly, but it must be done,” said KRCS’s Gullet. “We need to operate before things happen. We shouldn’t wait until people die to call it [drought] a national disaster.”
But on 18 January the government said the drought did not qualify as a disaster, adding that there were sufficient food supplies to meet the present needs.
Farmers in regions that enjoyed bumper maize harvests, such as parts of Rift Valley and Western Kenya, following favourable rains in 2010, are demanding higher prices. The government has set the price at KSh1,800 ($2.25) per 90kg bag, but farmers are demanding KSh2,200 ($2.75).
In the 2005-2006 drought, livestock worth more than KSh70 billion (about $0.9 billion) was lost in the North Eastern Kenya region alone; a subsequent drought in 2008-2009 resulted in the belated trucking of thousands of dying livestock to the Kenya Meat Commission, noted the officer in charge of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Kenya, Choice Okoro.

"The story of drought and famine is almost becoming a cliché in Kenya," noted Damaris Mateche, environmental security analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Nairobi. "Despite the existing drought early warning systems in the country, drought disaster response mechanisms and coping strategies remain miserably wanting. More often, drought and famine situations degenerate into dire humanitarian crises before the government takes substantial action."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91666

POVERTY: SUDAN: Southern returnee deluge leaves aid workers in a quandary

  Photo: Paul Banks/UNMIS :  A Southern Sudanese returnee family residing in a school premises.

 AWEIL, 28 December 2010 (IRIN) - Build camps and run the risk of long-term dependence, or build nothing and watch basic needs grow: this is the dilemma facing aid workers in Southern Sudan amid an unexpectedly large deluge of people leaving the north of the country in the run-up to January’s secession referendum in the south.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), some 92,000 people of southern origin, many of them displaced during decades of civil war, had crossed from north to south between October and 22 December, and the rate of return was increasing.
The problem is that many are returning by bus, dropped off in major southern towns with no means of completing their journey to their area of origin.
When IRIN visited Aweil, capital of Northern Bahr al Ghazal State, recently, some 5,000 returnees were stuck in limbo there after spending a week on the road.
They were waiting for basic lifesaving assistance, such as water, emergency health services, and latrines, and also waiting for any word from the state government on what was in store for them next.
A week later, a UN official in the area told IRIN these returnees were still camped in the open air in a makeshift settlement that continued to swell with new arrivals.
“Establishing a formal camp means that people become used to the assistance that is given in the camp, [which] creates resistance to the closure and elimination of these camps,” said Giovanni Bosco, head of OCHA in Southern Sudan.
As Southern Sudan looks towards likely independence following its 9 January referendum, the prospect of multiple new camps outside towns in potentially volatile border states like Northern Bahr al Ghazal and Upper Nile is a significant concern, given the already low levels of infrastructure in the south and the imperative of beginning long-term development work after independence.
“It can take years to close a camp and to do a proper resettlement with durable solutions,” added Bosco.

Makeshift arrival settlements
The dire situation in the makeshift arrival settlements, however, is necessitating a response that the aid community admits could have long-term consequences.
“In an emergency environment and if a population is in need, regardless of where they are, we step in and try to provide them with assistance,” said Lise Grande, who coordinates UN humanitarian operations in the south.
“But we’re very clear that the reinsertion package, which is usually about three months worth of food and support to their households… needs to be delivered in points of final destination. The overall policy is not to have the transit sites become returnee camps,” she said. “But if people are in trouble in transit areas, of course we are going to respond.”
A day before the convoy of more than 600 families was expected to arrive in Aweil, Daniel Gar, the Northern Bahr al Ghazal State official in charge of facilitating their arrival through the government’s Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, said the government was expecting more than 87,000 to return before the referendum.

Allocation of land plots
Asked how the government planned to cope with the influx of new arrivals, Gar said his government “did not have much to give aside from plots [of land].”
“We are asking for the support of the UN agencies and aid groups,” he said.
When the Southern Sudanese government announced in August its plan to bring 1.5 million southerners home before the independence referendum, UN agencies including the International Organization for Migration decided that the organized returns programme proposed by the government could not be led by the international community given the time constraints and the likelihood that this particular returns effort could be interpreted as a political process, notably by the Khartoum government.
In the absence of significant international support for the process, the initial funds allocated by the southern government and by state governments have proven insufficient to support the high numbers of returns, particularly the final step of moving people from the urban centres where they arrive by bus to “points of final destination” in villages and rural areas.
According to OCHA in the southern capital, Juba, and to aid groups operating in towns like Aweil, the problems of funds for transport and the government’s lag in allocating plots for new arrivals in some areas is directly contributing to the threat of the creation of camps.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91470
 

MALNUTRITION: UN (OCHA): ZIMBABWE: Not enough progress to do without aid

9 December 2010 (IRIN) -
An appeal for US$415 million in humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe in 2011 has been made by the government and humanitarian organizations.
The humanitarian situation has improved in the last two years, but there were still "significant needs", the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in the capital, Harare, where the 2011 Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) was launched.
"One in every three children in Zimbabwe is chronically malnourished, and malnutrition contributes to nearly 12,000 child deaths every year. An estimated 1.7 million Zimbabweans will face severe food insecurity during the peak hunger season from January to March 2011," OCHA said in a statement.
Urban farming has increasingly become a feature in cities and reflects the fragile nature of the country's food security, which reached its zenith in March 2009 when nearly 7 million people - almost two-thirds of the population - were receiving food assistance.
"Our hope is that if we get enough rains this year and part of next year [2011], then, through this urban agriculture that we practice, we may fend for our families,” said Sarudzayi Shoko, a domestic worker who has planted maize, the staple food, on vacant land in Harare's middle-class suburb of Belvedere.
“Unfortunately, we are almost at the end of the year and very little rains have fallen, and that is a cause for concern," Shoko told IRIN.
Unfortunately, we are almost at the end of the year and very little rains have fallen, and that is a cause for concern
The national food requirement is about 1.7 million tons, but only around 1.35 million tons was harvested in 2009/10.
The 1.8 million hectares planted to maize in 2009/10 represented a 20 percent increase from the previous year, but the greater amount of land under cultivation was not mirrored in the harvest, which only increased seven percent from the previous year.
In 2000, President Robert Mugabe launched the fast-track land reform programme, which redistributed more than 4,000 white commercial farms to landless blacks, and set in motion a decade-long economic malaise from which the country has struggled to recover.
"Whilst there has been an improvement in agricultural production over the last two seasons, the sector still faces many challenges and farmers will require input support," OCHA noted.
"In addition, although the scale of cholera has significantly reduced, localized outbreaks continued to be experienced due to the poor state of the health, and water sanitation and hygiene sectors. A third of rural Zimbabweans still lack access to safe water," OCHA said.

Bureaucratic blunders
A cholera epidemic that began in August 2008 and lasted for a year before it was officially declared at an end in July 2009 caused the deaths of more than 4,000 people and infected nearly 100,000 others.
Ignatius Chombo, minister of local government, rural and urban planning, said food production could also be affected by bureaucratic inefficiencies, after it was "discovered" that rural farmers in the southwestern provinces of Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South had failed to collect farming inputs worth an estimated US$30 million, set aside to benefit disadvantaged rural families.
Distribution of the inputs, which include seed and fertilizer, is the responsibility of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), a parastatal organization.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91334

POVERTY: KENYA: Humanitarian situation likely to worsen in 2011

  Photo: Siegfried Modola/IRIN

La Niña conditions will not only lead to water scarcity but also food insecurity, heightened conflict and disease
NAIROBI, 30 November 2010 (IRIN) - Kenya is likely to witness worsening food security, significant disease outbreaks, and further pockets of conflict in 2011, as well as a continuing flow of refugees from Somalia, say aid officials.
"There is a fear of La Niña compromising the [food security] gains made," said Aeneas Chuma, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator at the 30 November launch of Kenya’s 2011 Emergency Humanitarian Response Plan (EHRP) appeal. Most of the US$525 million funding requested is expected to meet food security and refugee needs.
At present, the number of food aid beneficiaries has dropped to 1.2 million from a peak of 3.8 million during the 2009 drought due to favourable October-December 2009 short rains and March-May 2010 long rains. But numbers are expected to rise, with poor rains in eastern and northeastern regions, as well as lower levels in western areas.
According to the assistant minister in the Ministry of State for Special Programmes, Mahmoud Ali, an estimated 250,000 and 40,000 children younger than five, respectively, are affected by moderate and severe acute malnutrition nationally.
"With the La Niña, the drought, and the shortfall of water... cholera outbreaks are also likely," said Patrick Lavand’homme, deputy head for Kenya of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Kenya has been struggling with repeat cholera outbreaks since 2006 – reported cases have declined over the January to October period to 3,000 compared with 8,000 in 2009.
Conflict over water and pasture during the dry spell is also projected to continue in arid parts, with “an estimated 10,000 people… expected to be displaced due to resource-based conflicts, fuelled by proliferation of small arms into the country from the neighbouring countries”, according to the EHRP.

Planning for influx
Contingency planning for a likely surge in Southern Sudanese asylum-seekers, as a possible impact of the 9 January referendum, is also necessary, said officials. “We are talking about probably 20,000 Sudanese asylum-seekers in the first half of 2011 and about 80,000 more in the second half,” said Lavand’homme.
A continued influx of Somali refugees, now estimated at about 4,000 a month, is expected to continue into 2011. Kenya hosts 412,193 refugees and asylum-seekers and the numbers are projected to rise to 455,000 by the end of 2011, according to the government.
“Given the escalation of fighting in Somalia, a weakened central government, and the proliferation of armed groups, it is envisaged that there will be an increase in the refugee population in Dadaab [refugee camp] of between 60,000 and 100,000 in 2011,” stated the EHRP.
While Kenya's political situation is expected to remain stable in 2011, aid agencies will be assessing the impact of the recently passed constitution, such as new county boundaries, and preparations for the 2012 general elections.
The EHRP, dubbed 2011+, will be characterized by longer-term humanitarian projects incorporating disaster risk reduction into 2012-2013. "We are hoping this will encourage donors to deal with crises on a continuum basis to build on the year-on-year capacity," said Anne O'Mahony, Kenya director for Concern Worldwide.
Continued humanitarian assistance is vital as Kenya deals with multiple challenges, including a growing population and a lack of infrastructure, said O'Mahony, adding that recurrent drought and flooding had brought about a chronic poverty cycle in the arid areas.
“Chronic poverty also is not very far from our doorsteps as seen in urban slums in Nairobi and Mombasa," she said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91244

MALNUTRITION: DJIBOUTI: Drought appeal for 120,000 vulnerable pastoralists

Photo: IRIN: Tens of thousands of pastoralists in Djibouti need food and nutrition assistance
12 November 2010 (IRIN) -
A “forgotten emergency” has left tens of thousands of pastoralists in Djibouti needing food and nutrition assistance as well as longer-term coping mechanisms, according to the UN.
The tiny Horn of Africa state is the subject of a US$38.9 million appeal for food aid ($16.2 million), agriculture and livestock ($6.5 million), health and nutrition ($7.4 million), water and sanitation ($2.4 million), and emergency preparedness and sanitation ($6.4 million).
Pastoralists and other rural dwellers have been particularly affected by successive years of drought since 2005, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
"Water reserves have been depleted, there has been a massive loss of livestock, and as a direct result many people are facing the destruction of their livelihoods and lost sources of income," the agency said. "Increasing numbers of pastoralists have had to give up their traditional activities and are settling in urban areas."
Djibouti's food security situation is likely to further deteriorate due to the effects of La Niña events, expected to result in drier–than–normal conditions during the October–December rainy season, according to OCHA.
The country is also affected by the worsening violence and insecurity in neighbouring Somalia, OCHA said, with Djibouti hosting a refugee population of 14,500.
Launching the appeal in Geneva earlier this month, Valerie Amos, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said, “Due to high food prices and reduced purchasing power, too many people are unable to feed their families.
"While this appeal will help meet immediate humanitarian needs, like food and nutrition, it is important that we also address the root causes of recurrent food crises and improve the country's capacity to respond to these emergencies," she said.
Djibouti is considered a least developed low-income food deficit country and was ranked 147th out of 169 countries in the 2010 UN Human Development Index.
In an effort to mitigate the effects of drought, Djibouti abolished tax on food and some agricultural inputs and promoted the cultivation of unused arable land, according to Mohamed Siad Doualeh, the country’s ambassador to the UN.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91075

POVERTY: PAKISTAN: Nomads without livestock

15 September 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of people camped out along the main road from Quetta, capital of the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, to Sukkur in Sindh Province, are living in primitive conditions, some with no shelter from the scorching sun. Among them are a particularly vulnerable group: nomads who have lost their livestock. One of them is Wali Jamote, 50, who fled his village in Nasirabad District early in August. "I lost everything we had - our tent, the few clothes, shoes and utensils we possess, and worse of all my goats and a camel," Wali told IRIN. He and his family move every few months in search of fresh pasture: "The animals were all we had. They provided us with milk and cheese, and without them my children have gone hungry." He said he had been given "no help at all" by any agency. Worse still, Wali and others like him have no idea what the future holds. "Will anyone give me a camel?" he asked. He also said he had no national identity card. "Some soldiers who passed by said I could receive no help without it - but they also said that with no fixed address I was not eligible for one." Maurizio Giuliano, public information officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), played down this concern: "As regards humanitarian assistance provided by the UN and its partners, lack of an ID would not be an issue. When people need food or water to survive, humanitarians don't ask for ID documents to be in order," he told IRIN. However, people like Wali are unfamiliar with the process for receiving aid. They also have no idea how losses are to be assessed or what help they will receive with recovery. The minister for food and agriculture has told the media the loss of "agriculture and livestock runs into billions of rupees". [ http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/19-farm,-livestock-sectors-suffer-colossal-loss-380-hh-01 ] No schemes have yet begun to resupply livestock to flood victims, though the Pakistani government has announced it plans to compensate them in a number of ways and assist with rehabilitation. [ http://www.thenews.com.pk/14-09-2010/Top-Story/528.htm ] Camel rides plan There are no official figures on nomads, though one study, [ http://www.fspublishers.org/ijab/past-issues/IJABVOL_3_NO_2/30.pdf ] which analyses the different nomadic and pastoralist groups in the country, indicated their numbers have been declining. "My plan is to get to Karachi once roads reopen. My brother owns a camel there and offers rides at the seaside. Perhaps I can join him and get enough cash to buy my own animals," said Wali. He said he had taken his camels to the seaside to earn cash by giving rides before, "but this life is not for me in the longer term". For those totally dependent on their animals the losses mean they must find alternative livelihoods. This is especially difficult for people like Wali, who have no readily marketable skills, and no savings, to fall back on. "We live a simple life. We carry our home on our camels, as we move from place to place and live from day to day. But now we have lost our home, our animals and our freedom. I have no idea how we will survive." "The economic fall-out from this disaster on those affected will be catastrophic," economist Sikander Lodhi told IRIN. Meanwhile, aid efforts are patchy: For example in Nasirabad Division (comprising the Nasirabad and Jafarabad districts in Balochistan) only around 60 percent of the 400,000 flood-displaced persons have so far been reached with humanitarian assistance, according to an OCHA situation report of 9 September. [ http://www.pakresponse.info/sitreps/OCHA_SITREP23_9_September.pdf ]
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90477

MALNUTRITION: NIGER: Almost 200,000 displaced by floods

27 August 2010 (IRIN) - Further heavy rains in Niger have caused the number of people displaced by flooding to soar from 111,000 last week to 198,740 this week, says the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is calling on donors and aid agencies to urgently send shelter materials, blankets and mosquito nets. "Response in rural areas has been slow thus far," the head of OCHA in Niger, Modibo Traoré, told IRIN. Flood-displaced families in remote the Diffa region in the southeast, and Agadez in the north, have received no assistance to date. In Agadez some 80,000 animals, already weakened by the ongoing nutrition and food security crisis, have died in the floods. "We must find a way to quickly burn or bury their bodies to ensure water sources are not contaminated," Traoré told IRIN. The government is sending 400 tons of food to people displaced by floodwater, and has released $200,000 in emergency funding to purchase more. The flooding has aggravated a countrywide food security crisis, in which nearly half of Niger's 15.2 million people are experiencing hunger after the harvests failed, according to the government. Traoré warned that the flooding could worsen. "The rainy season is still continuing, so victim numbers may rise even further."

POVERTY and MALNUTRITION : Conflicting views on the situation in Gaza

GAZA CITY, 5 August 2010 (IRIN) - The quality of life, the economy and food security for Palestinians living in Gaza have been severely impaired by Israel's strict four-year blockade, according to the UN. Israel says its closure regime is designed to protect Israeli citizens from attacks by militants in Gaza. Hamas, the ruling group in Gaza, says Israel's blockade is aimed at undermining its rule. IRIN asked three senior officials in the region - from the UN, the Israeli government and Hamas - what they considered to be the top five humanitarian needs of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the Strip. UN view Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs (OCHA) for the occupied Palestinian territory, defines the situation in Gaza as "a protracted human dignity crisis with important humanitarian elements". Lazzarini says Gaza is a man-made crisis. He uses the term "human dignity crisis" because he says the entire Gaza population is subject to collective punishment under the blockade, is unlawfully contained in Gaza, and denied the right to movement and access. The containment of the population was highlighted when people could not move during Israel's 23-day offensive that ended in January 2009, he says. "A humanitarian crisis is a situation where humanitarian intervention is seen as a life-saving operation," says Lazzarini. "The massive intervention in Gaza - by UN agencies and other international partners - is justified by the humanitarian crisis and to address the needs of the population." The facts and figures indicate that if UN operations stopped, food insecurity and malnutrition rates in Gaza would double, he said. His top five Gaza humanitarian needs are: One: food security The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says 70 percent of Gaza's population is food insecure and 30 percent of Gaza's agricultural land is inaccessible due to the Israeli-controlled buffer-zone, which is inside Gaza along its shared border with Israel, and comprises 15 percent of Gaza's total area. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83757 Two: unemployment and poverty About 80 percent of the Gaza population depends on assistance from UN agencies, while unemployment has soared to 40 percent, says Lazzarini. "In the last two years the number of those living in abject poverty in Gaza has risen from 100,000 to 300,000," he says. Three: shelter Some 86,000 new housing units are needed in Gaza as a result of population growth. A small proportion of these are needed to replace those damaged during military operations, according to UN estimates. If the current Israeli approval procedures to bring construction material into Gaza remain in place, it will take years for the UN to implement its US$165 million-worth of stalled projects, says Lazzarini. [http://www.IRINnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=90066] Four: water, sanitation and health care The blockade has seriously affected these sectors in Gaza, says Lazzarini. Five: education "The United Nations Relief and Works Agency and the education ministry cannot cover the needs of the number of children entering the education system in Gaza," says Lazzarini, due to a lack of schools and investment. Hamas view Bassem Na'im, health minister under the Hamas-led government in Gaza, says the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is growing. His top five humanitarian needs are: One: freedom of movement Nai'im would like to see the complete freedom of movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza. "The entry of goods and building materials for all sectors - health, shelter, water and sanitation - is the solution to the whole crisis," says Na'im. Two: health services This would require medicine, medical supplies and equipment to enter Gaza freely, as well as spare parts and building materials for the repair of hospitals and healthcare facilities, according to Na'im. "A hundred medications and over 150 disposable supplies, like needles and syringes, are at zero stock in the ministry's central store," he says. More than 10,000 types of medical equipment, like CT scanners, are in need of spare parts in the 12 hospitals and 56 primary healthcare centres run by the ministry, says Na'im. Three: water and sanitation "Thousands of Gazans lack household water supplies," says Na'im. Four: fuel and electricity supplies Most households have power cuts 8-12 hours per day due to the blockade, according to Na'im. Five: education According to Na'im, the education sector has been hit hard by the blockade due to a lack of supplies, but the full impact will take years to materialize. Rising malnutrition indicators [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84018] - such as increased cases of stunting, wasting and underweight children - are also effecting child development, said Na'im. Israeli view Guy Inbar, spokesperson for the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the (Palestinian) Territories (COGAT) says "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza and there never has been, even during Operation Cast Lead [2009 Israeli military operation in Gaza]." "The only crisis in Gaza is the crisis of [captured Israeli soldier] Gilad Shalit," said Inbar, adding that Hamas has not enabled the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Shalit. [http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/israel-shalit-interview-230610] Israel recently increased the amount of goods allowed to enter Gaza, said Inbar. "Today [29 July] about 150 trucks enter Gaza daily and next week we expect that number to reach 250," said Inbar, adding that no food or hygiene items were prohibited. According to Inbar, almost all medical supplies are allowed to enter. "Parts for equipment - like X-ray machines, which are included on the two lists [of prohibited items] - are allowed to enter but under control," he said. When IRIN asked Inbar if the civilian population of Gaza would survive if UN operations ceased there, he declined to comment. Inbar said Gaza's problems were due to Hamas.

POVERTY: Gaza and the blockade

Here are some of the key humanitarian challenges facing the people of Gaza and the relief agencies that work there as a result of the Israeli blockade.
FOOD
Over three quarters of Gaza's population is food insecure or vulnerable to food insecurity, relying heavily on aid subsidies, according to a report by the World Food Programme and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), published in November last year. The report said the population of Gaza was being sustained at "the most basic or minimum humanitarian standard."
Food security exists when all people, at all time, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Food insecurity exists when this access is jeopardised.
Food price inflation, a deterioration or destruction of livelihoods and the population's increasing inability to cope with the difficult circumstances all contribute to food insecurity in Gaza, the report said.
Restrictions on imports and exports, and increased restricted access to agricultural and fishing areas, further undermine Palestinians' access to food, leaving many dependent on food aid. Overall, food insecurity affects 61 percent of households in Gaza while an additional 16 percent are considered vulnerable to food insecurity, the WFP/FAO report added. Only 23 percent of households in the Gaza Strip are considered marginally secure and food secure.
The report found that 71 percent of people in the Gaza Strip said they received humanitarian assistance with the rest saying they did not receive any aid.
AGRICULTURE AND FISHING
Restricted imports of livestock, seeds and seedlings, plastic piping, iron bars for animal shelters, water pumps, filters and irrigation pipes, fishing nets, engine spare parts, veterinary drugs and cement are decimating Gaza's agriculture and fishing industries.
Israel bars the imports of building materials including steel, cement and pipes, saying Hamas could use them to manufacture weapons.
Farmers have been unable to rebuild agricultural land or vital roads because of a lack of construction materials like concrete and heavy equipment. Goods imported via tunnels from Egypt are often sold at inflated prices that most Palestinians cannot afford.
As of June 2009, 46 percent of agricultural land in Gaza was assessed as inaccessible or out of production because of destruction caused during Operation 'Cast Lead' or because the land is inside a no-go area along the northern and eastern borders with Israel, according to a report by EUNIDA for the European Commission last year.
Restricted access to fishing grounds has depleted catches and revenues. "The fact that this coastal population now imports fish from Israel and through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border speaks to the absurdity of the situation," the Association of International Development Agencies said in a recent statement.
Gaza's waste water treatment infrastructure also needs upgrading to avoid the contamination of agricultural land and to create an alternative source of water for irrigation.
RECONSTRUCTION
Operation 'Cast Lead' caused some $268 million in damages, according to the United Nations. Israeli bombardments caused huge damage to already depleted infrastructure. Restrictions on imports of cement, other building materials and heavy lifting equipment are hampering efforts to rebuild vital roads, health and education services and power supplies.
POWER CUTS
Electricity shortages mean Gaza's population experiences rolling blackouts of up to 12 hours every day, according to an OCHA report, exacerbating the already difficult living conditions. Gaza's sole power plant, the Gaza Power Plant, is able to produce only half the electricity that it did prior to January 2010, due to a lack of funds to buy the industrial fuel needed to run the plant.
Hospitals and clinics often have to rely on back-up generators that are not designed to function for long periods and are often damaged as a result.
HEALTH
Many specialised treatments, such as for complex heart surgery and certain types of cancer, are not available in Gaza and patients are referred for treatment to hospitals outside the territory. But many patients have had their applications for exit permits denied or delayed by Israeli authorities and have missed their appointments. Some have died while waiting for referral, the World Health Organisation said in a January statement.
There are often shortages of key supplies and drugs. Delays of up to three months occur on imports of certain types of medical equipment, such as X‐ray machines and electronic devices. Clinical staff frequently lack the medical equipment they need while medical devices are often broken, missing spare parts or out of date, the WHO added.
Furthermore, health professionals in Gaza are cut off from the outside word and few receive training to update their skills and knowledge.
Rising unemployment and poverty - 42 percent of Gaza's workforce was unemployed in the first quarter of 2009 and 70 percent of the families were living on an income of less than one dollar a day per person in May 2008, according to OCHA - is likely to have long term adverse effects on the physical and mental health of the population, WHO said.
Other health problems include malnutrition, wasting and underweight children and aneamia.
The lack of building materials is affecting essential health facilities: the new surgical wing in Gaza's main Shifa hospital has remained unfinished since 2006. Hospitals and primary care facilities, damaged during operation 'Cast Lead', have not been rebuilt because construction materials are not allowed into Gaza.
POVERTY
A poverty survey carried out by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) showed that the number of refugees living in abject poverty since the onset of the blockade in 2007 has tripled. UNRWA found that 300,000 Palestine refugees live in conditions of abject poverty, from 100,000 in 2007. These families are completely unable to secure access to food and lack the means to purchase even the most basic items such as soap, school stationary and safe drinking water.
http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/55076/2010/05/1-141115-1.htm