POVERTY: THAILAND: Rice pests multiply post-floods

BANGKOK, 12 March 2012 (IRIN)

 Photo: Sylvia Villareal/IRRI
Of pests and pesticide in Thailand: a province hit by the brown planthopper

Heavy flooding across parts of Thailand in 2011 has fuelled outbreaks of a rice pest that can decimate harvests, experts say.
The pest, known as brown planthopper (BPH), transmits two viruses that hit yields as well as eating away at rice plants.
"The floods have certainly made things worse," Kong Luen Heong, principal scientist for the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) told IRIN.
"Moreover, they will impact [on] upcoming harvests as well."
"BPH is attacking the rice bowl of the country for the eighth time in a row [over the past four years]," said Kukiat Soitong, from the Thai government's Rice Department, based in the Agriculture Ministry, adding that "150,000 hectares have already been seriously damaged in the central plains, in the basin of Chao Phraya river".
Affected provinces lost 30 percent of their rice production due to BPH in early 2010, amounting to around 1.3 million tons for the country, or more than 15 percent of the nationwide harvest, which takes place twice a year, reported the Rice Department.
According to the Thai Rice Exporters' Association, Thailand produces 4-5 percent of the world's rice, and is the largest exporter, with 10.8 million tons in 2011.
Last year's flooding, which affected more than two million people across 28 provinces and damaged more than two million hectares of farmland, worsened the longstanding pest problem by drowning natural enemies of BPH, including insect parasites and spiders.
"Because of the floods and the killing of BPH's natural enemies, farmers are more dependent on insecticides for several seasons. And the fact is that using insecticides makes BPH even stronger," added Kukiat.
Most insecticides kill BPH's natural enemies, rather than BPH itself. The brown planthopper has an "unmatched" capacity to become resistant to any molecule used against it, according to Keng Hong Tan, a retired entomology professor based in Malaysia.
He says the pest has even developed resistance to one of its own hormones when applied as a control measure.
And while IRRI and Thailand's Rice Department launched a campaign in July 2011 to ban the two insecticides most often used in rice cultivation, cypermethrin and abamectin - known to cause BPH's resurgence - the ban is unlikely to have a significant impact.
"This campaign will have limited immediate effects because of the floods," said Heong. "It will take some strong will to break the vicious circle that helps BPH."
Yet banning insecticides is the only way to control BPH outbreaks in the long term, said Ho Van Chien, director of the Vietnamese government's plant protection centre for southern Vietnam.
According to IRRI, BPH damaged hundreds of thousands of hectares across Asia, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in lost production.
Since 2009, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam have been severely affected at least once.
"BPH puts the whole rice ecosystem in jeopardy," said Erma Budiyanto, director of plant protection in Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture.
"There could be a humanitarian situation because of this pest in the future if insecticides remain as widely used as today," said Heong.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95058/THAILA

POVERTY: PHILIPPINES: Mindanao hospitals on alert for Leptospirosis

CAGAYAN DE ORO, 5 January 2012 (IRIN)

 Photo: Ana Santos/IRIN
Cagayan de Oro City has a recorded 173 cases of leptospirosis

Hospitals in Northern Mindanao are preparing for more cases of Leptospirosis, a bacterial disease spread by rodents, following tropical storm Washi.
"All hospital and clinic staff are on alert," Jose Llacuna Jr, Department of Health (DoH) assistant regional director for Northern Mindanao, confirmed on 5 January, citing 314 cases and eight deaths in flood-affected Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan.
The two cities were pummelled by Washi, which struck northern parts of the southern Philippine island on 16 to 18 December, affecting some one million people.
More than 1,250 people died in the storm, while some 100 are still missing, the country's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said on 5 January; close to 38,000 people are still in 54 evacuation centres in the area.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Leptospirosis affects both humans and animals. It is brought about by exposure to water or soil infected by the urine and faeces of rodents.
Common in slum areas, disasters such as typhoons can result in a spike in cases when residents are exposed to contaminated water.
Leptospirosis can cause fever, internal bleeding, meningitis and in severe cases, organ failure and even death, health experts warn.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the time between exposure to a contaminated source and falling ill is two days to four weeks.

Mostly males
About 80 percent of reported cases in Mindanao diagnosed were among males, with a median age of 26, Llacuna said.
"Men are left to clean up flooded homes and haul heavy objects. They are the ones exposed to infected flood waters," he explained.
"Most of the cases were among those who live in Macasinding, one of the worst flood-affected communities," Jose Chan, chief of the hospital at the Northern Mindanao Medical Center, added.
Residents who had not taken shelter in the evacuation centres were particularly vulnerable, he said.
"Those who are not in the evacuation centres cannot be tracked or given medication or treatment. They are also likely to have prolonged exposure to the flood waters," Chan said.
But despite the outbreak, the levels of Leptospirosis are still nowhere near those reported during Typhoon Ketsana in 2009, when there were more than 2,000 cases and 167 reported deaths.

There is, however, still reason to worry.
"The accumulated mud is still a potential source of infection. It may still contain bacteria from the carcasses of rodents or their faeces and urine which remain in the soil," Brian Enriquez, focal point for Emerging Health Threats for the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), told IRIN.
Moreover, clearing of certain areas will remain difficult as regular water service is not expected to resume before 22 January. District water supplies to both Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan were severely damaged by the flash floods.
To date, only pipelines in certain parts of the cities are partially functional, while addressing lack of awareness is also a challenge.
Rapid diagnostic kits are being deployed by the DoH to test early symptoms of the disease. The region is not known to be prone to typhoons, flash floods and landslides and many people were ill-prepared to cope with Washi's aftermath.
"We're not used to this [flooding]," Ellen Satua, a local DoH official said. "People are easily worried that having a fever already means they have Leptospirosis. Rapid testing and diagnosis are part of reassuring them."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94590

POVERTY: THAILAND: Authorities boost flood-control measures

BANGKOK, 1 February 2012 (IRIN)

 Photo: Shermaine Ho/IRIN 
Millions were impacted by the 2011 floods

The Thai government is pressing ahead with efforts to mitigate the risk of flooding during the upcoming rainy season, but greater coordination is still needed, flood experts say.
The US$9.6 billion measure was announced on 20 January as a first step, ahead of the annual May-October rainy season, at a flood forum organized by the National Economic and Social Development Board and the Asian Development Bank.
"If the same amount of water comes to Bangkok this year [as in 2011], the situation will be improved," Chusit Apiramanekal, a water resource management specialist in the Climate Risk Management Department of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) in Bangkok, told IRIN.
While no specific timeline is yet in place, the government will soon produce a master plan for flood risk reduction activities, including canal drenching, cleaning drainage systems and excavation to prevent the recurrence of last year's damage, when "most of the waterways and drainages were not functioning properly", said Ti Le Huu, former chief of water security for the Environment and Development Division at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
The severity of the 2011 floods, brought on by unusually high rainfall after several storms and typhoons, has underscored the need for stronger prevention efforts.
More than 675 people died and millions were affected in what has since been described as the worst flooding to strike the Thai kingdom in 50 years.
The government's 2012 Action Plan includes a budget of $3.9 billion for the construction of flood ways and flood diversion channels, which will allow 1,500 million cubic metres to flow out per second, according to ADPC. Immediate work this year would include the improvement of dykes, sluice gates and canals.
In addition, almost $2 billion will go towards converting 324,000 hectares of Chao Phraya farmland north of Bangkok into land that can retain up to 10 billion cubic metres of water to prevent the flooding of areas downstream.

Preparedness key
The damage last year was exacerbated by the "lack of preparedness of people living in the affected areas, partly due to a lack of an effective communication system to share information, especially of flood forecasts", said Le Huu.
But Le Huu downplayed the risk of similar flooding in 2012. Similarly, ADPC says there is little chance that there will be a repeat of 2011's "extraordinary" precipitation, which was 40 percent above national averages at 70,000 million cubic metres of water, according to Chusit.
"When the dams tried to release the water, the provinces downstream were already flooded. When operators tried to control it, a tropical storm hit Thailand, forcing them to release it fully," he said.
The total volume of floodwater has been confirmed at 14,000 million cubic metres by the government's Strategic Committee for Flood Reconstruction and Development, according to Le Huu.

Dam fears
While fears about the dams bursting are rampant in local media, Deltares, a Dutch think-tank assisting the Thai government in an advisory role to the Flood Relief Operation Center (FROC), says dams are now operating at a lower level to mitigate flood risks.
"During 2011 the dams were full, up to the operational limit, and dam operators had to release water at the wrong time. Latest news is that they decided to operate at a lower level, give less priority to agricultural and energy use, in favour of downstream flood protection. Hence a lower risk for dam breaks," Tjitte Nauta, Deltares' integrated water management specialist for Southeast Asia, said.
According to local media reports, dam waters have dropped from 91 percent of capacity to about 84 percent in two weeks.
Of the more than two dozen dams in the Chao Phraya River basin constructed since the 1950s, the two largest - Bhumipol and Sirikit - are located on Ping and Nang river in the northern Tak and Uttaradit provinces, and control 22 percent of all water runoff from the Chao Phraya river basin.
But policymakers need to coordinate better to improve planning and flood response, said Nauta.
"The recent floods made very clear that the governance structure for water management is too complicated and during such a national crisis one single command authority would be strongly recommended," he said.
"The challenge is to maintain the momentum of work, interest, and commitment in flood management at the top level of government," added Le Huu.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94770

POVERTY: SOUTHERN AFRICA: Floods leave Angolan returnees stranded

JOHANNESBURG, 6 January 2012 (IRIN) -

 Photo: Tomas de Mul/IRIN
The Zambezi is prone to flooding annually
Several thousand Angolan returnees from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are stranded by floods in northeastern Angola. They are among the first casualties of what promises to be a very wet rainy season in parts of southern Africa.
“At least 50,000 people - 24,000 of them returnees - in 10 villages in Uige Province [northeastern Angola near border with DRC] have been affected by the flooding, rains and hailstorms in the past four months,” said Antonio Maiandi, head of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Angola, which has been trying to help those affected. The rainy season here tends to be longer than elsewhere in Angola.
“It is still pouring hard. At least 1,142 houses have been destroyed by the rains. Each family with shelter is now hosting other families,” said Maiandi, adding that the returnees, who had sought refuge from the civil war in Angola which ended in 2002, were putting enormous pressure on locals, and organizations such as his.
“The local population who are mostly farmers have been severely affected. Their cassava [staple food in Angola] and groundnut crops have been destroyed, so there is not enough food to go round.”
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) restarted formal repatriation of Angolans in November 2011 after logistical and other problems forced the process to stop in 2007. DRC is home to some 80,000 Angolans refugees, according to UNHCR.
The new return initiative comes after a UNHCR survey in 2010 found that 43,000 wanted to return home, and following a tripartite agreement between Angola, DRC and UNHCR (signed in June 2011), around 20,000 people signed up for help to return. The agreement came about after years of tense relations between the two countries: Angolan and Congolese nationals have been expelled from the two countries regularly.
Each family with shelter is now hosting other families
“The local population is extremely poor and unable to support the returnees,” and “people are still coming in every day,” said Maiandi.
UNHCR in Angola told IRIN they took a break in December 2011 and would resume formal repatriation on 17 January, but did not have an update on the number of people who had already arrived.
According to aid workers, increasing instability in the DRC following the recent disputed elections could be prompting more people to leave.
Maiandi said the returnees had not received adequate support from the authorities and church organizations had limited resources.
Meteorologists for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have predicted normal to above normal rains for most of the region from January to March 2012 largely because of the continuing effects of the 2011 La Niña event. Thousands of people in the region were displaced and scores killed in early 2011 as a result of heavy rains and flooding associated with La Niña.

Zimbabwe
As the rainy season begins here, aid workers and disaster prevention teams are closely monitoring water levels in the all-important Zambezi river, the continent's fourth largest.
The authorities have issued a flood alert after being forced to release water from the swollen Kariba Dam on the Zambezi earlier than usual in the rainy season.
The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) which usually opens the spillway gates of Lake Kariba in the last two weeks of January was forced to open one of the gates on 3 January. It has advised people living downstream to evacuate their homes.

Zambia
Zambia is in for a mixed season. Dominicano Mulenga, national coordinator of Zambia's Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit, said a plan had been drawn up to help 368,953 people likely to be affected by rain and dry spells. While northwestern and western parts of the country had seen heavy rain, southern, eastern and parts of central Zambia were likely to receive little or no rain, he said.
The water level in the Zambezi was higher than at the same time in 2011, he added. “We have had three seasons of heavy rainfall and the ground is saturated with water, making it more prone to flooding.”

Namibia
Namibians, currently experiencing a heat wave, are eager for rain, said Guido van Langehove, chief of the Namibia Hydrological Services. Southern African Development Community (SADC) meteorologists have forecast normal to above normal rains for Namibia over the next three months. “It was the same forecast last year and we recorded three times the normal rain,” van Langehove pointed out.
The Caprivi Region, Namibia’s poorest area, is prone to annual flooding.
Japhet Itenge, director of Disaster Risk Management in the Office of the Prime Minister, said they were prepositioning essential commodities and relief tools as part of their contingency plans.

Lesotho
Lesotho has not received adequate rainfall in the past few months, a spokesman for the country’s meteorological services told IRIN. “SADC has forecast heavy rains for Lesotho in the coming weeks. We are worried it can cause early frost and destroy crops that have already been planted,” he said.
Lesotho and Namibia have food insecurity levels greater than their five-year averages due to the severe flooding experienced during the last growing season, according to FEWSNET.

Mozambique
The Mozambican authorities have begun to release water from the Cahora Bassa Dam on the Zambezi. People living mainly along the lower Zambezi basin and in Buzi, Save, and Pungue basins, including Beira city, are on alert.
Sofala Province in central Mozambique is currently distributing items such as bicycles, stretchers, masks, gloves, megaphones and boats, according to the Mozambique Red Cross; and members of seven local disaster risk management committees established in Beira City are cleaning the drainage system.
The National Institute of Disaster Management (INGC) is monitoring the rivers Montepuez, Licungo, Mutamba, Pungué, Buzi, Save, and Maputo, said FEWSNET. In the Zambezi and Limpopo river basins, FEWSNET warned of a near-average-to-high probability of flooding.
João Bobotela, CARE’s emergency response coordinator in Mozambique, said INGC and local authorities had been running flood simulation exercises since November 2011 to prepare communities for sudden evacuations.

Botswana
Arid Botswana has not received good rains in the past few months. “We are expecting average rains which might help crops,” said a spokesman for the Botswana Meteorological Services.

Malawi
More rains have been forecast for southern Malawi, where land adjacent to the River Shire, one of the most food-insecure parts of the country, is prone to flooding. Parts of the region, which has seen an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and a hike in food prices, are in crisis mode, warned FEWSNET.

South Africa
Much-needed rain has fallen in South Africa’s major maize-producing northern Free State area in the past few weeks. The government and USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) say the country has adequate supplies, but global maize stocks are low, putting considerable upward price pressure on South African white maize.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94598

POVERTY: Super 'floodway' mooted for Thai floods

Pratchaya W: 2 December 2011  A new floodway would help prevent flooding in Bangkok
Flickr/*petitpor*

[BANGKOK] Researchers from a Thai university have come up with a proposal for a 'super express' floodway to help reduce the impact of future flooding on Thailand's capital, Bangkok.
The idea came from Chulalongkorn University's Unit for Disaster and Land Information Studies and would make use of existing irrigation canals that run in parallel to the Chao Phraya River.
Thanawat Jarupongsakul, the leader of the study, said the team proposed to widen the canals and leave a kilometre-wide stretch of empty land alongside them. Motorways running to and from Bangkok would be raised six metres from the ground on both sides of the expanded floodway to act as its dykes.
He said the project would cost about 30 billion Thai baht (around US $1 billion) but, by utilising existing canals, would be much cheaper than digging a new waterway. It would also need less energy as it would mainly rely on gravity, rather than pumps, to drain the water, he added.
The expanded floodway could hold 1.6 billion cubic metres of water and it could drain about 500 million cubic metres of water a day — equivalent of 2.5 Olympic-sized swimming pools a second.
This year's flooding in Thailand has been described as the worst ever, affecting over 2.3 million people.
Thanawat said that this is only one of the 11 non-structural measures that they are proposing to help Bangkok remain safe from severe flooding.
Other measures include: an overhaul of the disaster warning system; urban development control for Bangkok and new satellite towns; flood taxes and insurances and flood risk maps for urban development and city planning.
The researchers have also proposed: water management plans and ground water use control; climate risk and farming plans; water retention area conservation plans; disaster management plans; and a new disaster management agency.
"The floodway is good, but it alone can only partly help the city to deal with severe flooding," admitted Thanawat. "It needs to be implemented with the other measures."
A source in the government's flood command centre said that senior officials were interested he team's super floodway idea but said that long-term maintenance could be a problem given that even maintaining the capacity of existing floodways is problematic.
Sutat Weesakul, director of research projects at the Asian Institute of Technology's School of Engineering and Technology, said the idea is good in principle as the city desperately needs a channel through which the floodwaters can flow through.
But there is need for more discussion on details to ensure its effectiveness and concerns about its maintenance, said Sutat.
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/natural-disasters/news/super-floodway-mooted-for-thai-floods.html

POVERTY: THAILAND: Two days in the life of an urban flood expert

BANGKOK, 2 December 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Shermaine Ho/IRIN
Adri Verwey visiting water pumping station at the Bang Sue canal in Bangkok, November 2011

As 16 billion cubic metres of flood water bore down on Bangkok in early October, international experts flew in to help the government deal with an unprecedented potential calamity.
One was Adri Verwey, an urban flood specialist from the Netherlands, another low-lying "delta" country that has honed its international reputation for water management through investments that protect the country's highest-density areas from even unlikely catastrophes that would only occur once in 10,000 years.
Verwey has worked for the past 40 years on flood forecasting systems, mostly in Asia, and is now the senior specialist on modelling systems at the Netherlands-based water resources management think tank, Deltares.
IRIN followed Verwey and his team in the Thai government's flood command centre from 10-11 November, when three out of Bangkok's 50 districts were ordered to evacuate while rising waters threatened to overwhelm the city's hastily constructed sandbag dykes and water pumping system.
"We do not have experience in dealing with such a serious flood; many local experts have never expected a flood would happen in Bangkok," said Barames Vardhanabhuti, a lecturer in the engineering department at Kasesart University.
One of the first steps was to gather data and satellite images from multiple government agencies, and then enter the information on topography, water levels and the city's drainage system (number of water pumps, canals, drainage capacity and speed) into a multi-dimensional modelling software, which generated worst-case flood scenarios.
The result was cartoon-like images of water spreading through the city, frame by frame.

Brainstorming
With northern Bangkok already under 1.6m of water and the capacity of existing dykes far too low to handle such a massive flood, Verwey proposed using soldiers to speed up sandbagging.
The city's main 170km King's Dyke needed to be sandbagged up to 1-2m higher to save the city's business and tourist hub from flooding, said Verwey.
According to the Ministry of Interior's department of disaster prevention and mitigation, 350,000 sandbags had been produced as of 2 November. The department planned to distribute an additional 250,000 sandbags to save the country's administrative and economic heart from the deluge.

 Photo: Shermaine Ho/IRIN : Sandbagged and waiting

In case water pumps and sandbagging failed to hold back the deluge from inner Bangkok, Verwey and army officials brainstormed possible next steps: cargo containers placed in openings under the railway tracks to block water from flowing into central Bangkok? Blowing up the sea dykes near the Gulf of Thailand to quicken drainage if floodwater made it to the southern coast?
But the focus was still on gathering data and working with the army on sandbagging plans.
Verwey met the army's chief of staff and presented the plan to the prime minister, who agreed to mobilize about 1,000 soldiers to inspect 80km of The King's Dyke twice a day and to help local residents place additional sandbags.
If the dykes were not reinforced by sandbags in time, said Verwey, water sneaking under the dykes could lead to a breach up to 100m wide - causing widespread flooding across almost all areas in Bangkok; at the time only 30 percent of the city was flooded.

Water pump inspection
Besides sandbagging to hold back floodwaters, the excessive amount of water that had already inundated the northern and eastern parts of the city needed to be drained.
Verwey's team inspected three of the city's 14 water pumping stations and declared two sites functional. At the third station, the team found eight out of 45 pumps non-functioning and the remaining ones working at less than capacity.
It was almost 9pm on 11 November when Verwey waded through floodwaters to inspect the Bang Sue canal, the last barrier between the water and Bangkok's inner city. He declared all of them functional.
"We are monitoring the pumps around the clock," said the water pump station master, who had used his own money to buy a fan to cool down overheated control units.
Nearby, residents filled the waterways with lotus-shaped boats made from curled banana leaves and marigold flowers as the country celebrated Loy Krathong - an annual full-moon festival to pay tribute to the water goddess.
Verwey left Bangkok on 20 November - one day after the prime minister declared central Bangkok safe, with floodwaters receding from most parts of the city, much in line with his simulations.

But for Verwey, the job is far from complete.
"We can expect the flood to continue to recede, but it will still take quite some time before outer Bangkok is completely dry," he said. "What is needed next is a thorough analysis of what has happened and how such a flood can be prevented in the future."
In December he and his colleagues will help the government draft a new plan for water resources management for the Chao Phraya Basin - which covers 30 percent of the country and houses 40 percent of the population.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94367

POVERTY: KENYA: Floods, rains wreak havoc

NAIROBI, 6 December 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Richard Lough/IRIN
Over 40,000 people have been affected by flooding since the start of short rains in October (file photo)

Heavy rains in Kenya have washed away bridges and rendered many roads impassable, complicating efforts to reach thousands of people made homeless by the flooding, an official of the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) told IRIN.
"We are currently undertaking an assessment through our branches countrywide to establish the magnitude of the problem [and identify] the most vulnerable of those affected and areas which we have not reached because of logistical challenges," Nelly Muluka, the KRCS public relations and communications officer, said on 5 December.
So far, Muluka said, at least a dozen people have died and more than 40,000 others have been affected since the start of short rains in October.
"Three people died in a mudslide in Keiyo [North Rift] three days ago, bringing the number of those who have died in the [Rift Valley] province to five since October; seven have died in Nyanza [western Kenya] and two at the Coast," Muluka said. "We are concerned about the livelihoods of those displaced by floods or heavy rain in various parts of the country and we have started distributing non-food items to those we have been able to reach.
"In Garbatula [Isiolo district] for instance, hundreds of farmers have lost crops... we now have to look ahead and see how they will be assisted in terms of livelihood support," Muluka said. "In other areas, there is the danger of waterborne diseases breaking out after latrines and boreholes were submerged and in other areas, water pipelines have burst."
According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), whose monitors are on the ground in northern Kenya, floods have affected all of Isiolo County, with Ewaso Nyiro River bursting its banks. Garfarsa, Kombola, Sericho, Merti and Garbatula are some of the worst-affected areas, KNCHR said.
The displaced and those affected by the floods urgently require relief aid such as food, mosquito nets, tents, blankets, cooking utensils and medicine. KNCHR said the situation had been especially dire for 21 people who had been marooned in the past six days on higher ground between two streams in Merti. The group was taken to Merti town by helicopter on 5 December.
River Nzoia burst its banks on 3 December, displacing thousands of people in Budalang'i, Bunyala and Funyula areas of western Kenya. Thousands are also displaced in Nyando and Nyatike areas in Nyanza, as well in Coast Province.
Teams comprising government, KRCS and UN officials are involved in rapid assessments of the flooding situation, a humanitarian official, who requested anonymity, told IRIN.
In October, flash floods in Coast Province claimed several lives, damaged schools and destroyed sewage systems. Some of the affected areas included Changamwe, Kisauni, Kongowea and Likoni estates in Mombasa, where flood waters submerged large areas, making it difficult for residents to access clean water.
In November, the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System issued a flood alert for Kenya, after more than 300 families were displaced and livestock swept away by flash floods in Wajir, northern Kenya; and 5,000 families relocated to higher ground in Kerio Valley in Rift Valley Province.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94402

POVERTY: Thailand: Build a flood-resilient city

BANGKOK, 28 November 2011 (IRIN)
 Photo: DTU flood team
One of the few remaining refuges to keep cars dry at the height of 2011 flooding in Bangkok: elevated parkways

Less than a year after Bangkok was chosen as a "role model city" by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) as part of the UN's 2010-2015 "Making Cities Resilient" campaign, the worst floods in half a century put that distinction to the test.
IRIN asked experts what the 3,000 low-lying cities such as Bangkok - which includes its delta neighbours - can do to improve their flood resilience.

Prioritize
A master plan capturing the city's development visions, priorities and vulnerability is the first step, said Adri Verwey, an urban flood expert at Deltares a Netherlands-based water management think-tank.
"Cities need to decide the levels of security that they want and which areas need more protection," he said.
In the Netherlands, where 26 percent of land is below sea level, cities with a high density of human and economic capital are designed to withstand a one-in-10,000-years flood, while inland, rural and sparsely populated areas are designed to withstand a-one-in-1,250 years flood.

Find higher ground
Unbalanced development is the weakest point of urban planning in many Asian countries, but Thailand's case is more extreme in that it has focused all its energy on the country's business and political capital, said Anisur Rahman, land use planning specialist at the Bangkok-based Asian Disaster Prevention Center (ADPC).
"Better planning would be developing the country with more attention given to other [surrounding] cities, so they can help share the pressure, especially in a catastrophic situation like this."
Instead of allowing new businesses to set up in and around Bangkok, future investments should be diverted to less-developed areas on higher land, said Rahman.
Lawmakers from Thailand's ruling party have submitted a parliamentary motion to move the capital to Nakhon Nayok Province - a sloping terrain with higher elevation.

Water resources management
"Store and divert" sums up all flood control strategies, said Takeya Kimio, a visiting senior adviser at the Bangkok office of Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
"Store" means building more reservoirs and retention ponds to retain water upstream and "divert" means develop sufficient canals and channels mid- and downstream to carry the overflow to sea.
For cities that are slowly sinking and have rising sea levels, governments need to regulate water resources, said Nat Marjang, a lecturer on water resources engineering at the Bangkok-based Kasetsart University.
"Before the law, which regulates groundwater extraction [in Thailand], was enforced, many factories built their own wells to extract water for industrial use. This is an important factor contributing to land subsidence."

 Photo: Shermaine Ho/IRIN

Going, going...
Bangkok is sinking by 30mm annually, according to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
Combined with a rising sea level of 25mm every year, the city could be under 50-100cm of water by 2025.

Private sector role
The private sector should be directly involved in flood management, said Jerry Velasquez, senior regional coordinator for UNISDR Asia Pacific.
"What we need from them is not only corporate social responsibility and money, but their active involvement. It can be as simple as building a dyke around their factories, choosing the right locations to build factories and coming up with disaster contingency plans."
The Federation of Thai Industries estimated losses from the seven hardest-hit industrial estates could reach US$13 billion, covering 891 factories and 460,000 workers, according to local media.

Re-evaluate flood control system
Despite the extensive network of flood-control infrastructure already in place in Bangkok, experts said it largely failed to keep pace with the city's dramatic urbanization and development.
From 1985 to 2010, the percentage of the total population living in urban areas in Thailand increased from 26.8 to 34 percent, adding 10.5 million people to cities, according to the most recent UN world urbanization prospects.
While many officials believe the barrier known as His Majesty King's dyke, which runs north to south in eastern Bangkok, can save the city from flooding, Vewey said it was designed to handle only the typical annual rainfall and not a one-in-50-years flood like this year's.
As a result, pumping stations failed under the pressure.
Vewey said flood-prone countries needed to be more prepared.
"I'm impressed by the speed of sandbagging and the distribution of food and water [in Thailand], but you can't always solve problems with sandbags... It's shocking how people are unprepared for the flood. It's as if the phenomenon of flooding has been completely forgotten in Thailand," Verwey said.
Flooding in 1995 killed more than 400 people and affected close to four million, according to the government.
Investing in flood prevention is a "calculated choice", said Kimio at JICA. "There are only two options, either reduce the speed of development or invest more in flood control," he said.
Since the 1980s, the risk of economic loss due to floods in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries has increased by more than 160 percent, outstripping the growth of GDP per capita, according to UNISDR.
Nine of the top 10 coastal flood-prone cities by 2070, including Bangkok, are in Asia, according to a recent World Bank report.
Asia accounts for more than half of the developing world's cities most vulnerable to flooding, according to UN-HABITAT.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94319

POVERTY: CAMBODIA: Schools and students struggle post-floods

PHNOM PENH, 24 November 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Vincent Macisaac/IRIN
Soy Chet- orphaned and now out of school also

 Schools damaged in Cambodia's worst monsoons in more than a decade may take up to a year to recover after flooding delayed the start of school for thousands of students nationwide, say aid workers and officials.
As of late October, 323 schools out of 1,400 damaged ones were closed; some have since reopened. Though flood waters have receded, how well those schools are functioning and how many remain closed is still unknown, as the government continues its damage assessments in a dozen flood-hit provinces.
At least 77 schools are beyond repair, while students and teachers were still pumping water out of dozens more, said the director of the education ministry's construction department on 21 November, Song Yen.
"We have not yet completely assessed the damage," he added.
Sam Sereyrath, general director of education at the Ministry of Education, estimated some 20,000 children remained out of school, based on the number of schools destroyed.
Meanwhile, teachers warned that flooding had exacerbated the chronic shortage of books and other study materials. Purchases of 47,000 textbooks for 12 grades are under way while some schools simply opened their doors in October with no teaching materials, said the president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers' Association, Rong Chhun.
It will still take months for the school system to recover, he added.
Disruption from the flooding will have a "huge impact" on drop-out rates, absenteeism and enrolment, said Keo Sarath, education programme manager at Save the Children Cambodia.

MDG progress
The country's progress on the Millennium Development Goal for primary school education is mixed: 94 percent of primary school-age children were enrolled for the 2009-2010 school year; 83 percent of students enrolled in primary school completed the 2008-2009 year; and there was virtually no gender disparity in enrolment. Lower secondary education goals cannot be achieved by 2015 at the current pace, according to a preliminary UN analysis from September 2010.
To mitigate the risk that the floods may derail progress on primary education, existing guidelines to make up lost school hours must be enforced, said Denise Shepherd-Johnson, head of communications for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Cambodia.
A downward trend in government spending on education - 19.2 percent of the budget in 2007 to 15.9 percent in 2012 - limits the Education Ministry's ability to respond to the flooding, she added.
Almost 10 percent of the country's population, about 1.6 million people, was directly hit by the flooding, about one-quarter of a million people fled to higher ground and about 250 people died, according to the National Committee for Disaster Management's most recent data from 28 October.
The flooding began in mid-July in the upper Mekong River, and then spread to 18 of the country's 24 provinces as Cambodia's largest lake, the Tonle Sap, more than doubled its monsoon-season size.
Almost 20 million people have been affected since June in Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, Vietnam and Laos.

 Photo: Vincent Macisaac/ IRIN
Students outside a temporary school set up after flooding in Anlong Chrey village

Stop-gap schooling
Save the Children and the Education Ministry have set up more than 400 temporary schools in four of Cambodia's worst-hit provinces, reaching more than 12,000 primary-school students.
"Every day a child is not in school increases the risk they drop out permanently in a disaster like this. If we can quickly get them back in school-like settings, the chances of this happening are reduced," Jasmine Whitbread, CEO of Save the Children International, told IRIN.
In recent visits to the flood-hit provinces, Battambang and Kampong Cham, residents of villages who lost their annual rice crop, or remain isolated by flooding, told IRIN they were struggling to feed themselves and keep their livestock alive.
Flooding destroyed some 265,000 hectares of rice, about 10 percent of the total 2.5 million hectares planted, according to the government.
A rice-growing village, Anlong Chrey, in Kampong Cham Province, has become an islet reachable only by an hour's boat ride.
It had been entirely submerged for about one month, after the Mekong River, 8km west, and the Tonle Sap River, 35km east, overflowed their banks and converged in mid-September, said residents.
The village has two temporary primary schools - attended by about 140 children - but older students are among the hundreds who have been forced to leave the village of about 380 families in search of work.
Some children have gone as far as Thailand and Malaysia, residents said. A recent assessment by Save the Children Cambodia in 20 villages raised concerns of increased child labour and migration as adolescent girls search for work.
Soy Chet, 16, lives alone in Anlong Chrey village in a hut surrounded by knee-deep water. Orphaned three years ago, she managed to remain in school and support herself before the floods.
She said she hoped to finish primary school, but did not know what she would do afterwards as her neighbours had told her they could no longer support her.
"Maybe I will go to look for work in a sewing factory," she said, adding that if she did, it would be the first time she had ever left her district.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94298

POVERTY: BANGLADESH: Floods displace 20,000 in southeast

COX’S BAZAR, 26 July 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Ahmed Orko Nur/IRIN

Ainul Hoque has been displaced for a week

Heavy flooding in southeastern Bangladesh has forced more than 20,000 people from their homes in Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf districts, say local authorities.

“The homes of more than 20,000 people have been completely destroyed by the floodwaters,” Rafiqul Islam, district relief and rehabilitation officer (DRRO) for Cox’s Bazar, told IRIN, with another 84,000 homes partially damaged. “When the water recedes, many of these may also be inhabitable,” he said.
When the Bakkhali and Matamuhuri rivers burst their banks most of the displaced sought refuge in the more than 30 cyclone shelters in the low-lying area.
The newly displaced add to the more the 400,000 people already forced from their homes and unable to return due to rising floodwaters. When they will be able to return remains to be seen.
“When the water started rising, we were forced to leave our home and move to the hills. It has already been a week. My house is still submerged,” said Ainul Hoque, a resident of the Ramu sub-district of Cox’s Bazar.
So far at least seven people have died in the floods, say the authorities. Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf, both coastal districts, are prone to such disasters.
The severity of recent flooding has caught many by surprise. “Never in my life have I seen such flooding. The worst cyclones never submerged such a huge area for so long,” said Abdul Quddus, a resident of Piyemkhali sub-district of Cox’s Bazar.
Quddus and his family have been living in the local cyclone centre for almost a week.
“We are surviving on water and dry food provided by the local authorities. My home is gone, along with my seedbeds. I have no idea what I will eat the rest of the year,” the 46-year-old said.
According to the DRRO, rice and shrimp farmers have been badly affected by the recent flooding, with damage to the latter sector estimated at over US$3 million so far.

“The monsoon is a critical farming season and with the seedbeds destroyed, a tough challenge awaits us. Chakaria, one of the hardest hit sub-districts in the region, provides almost 80 percent of the vegetables in this region. The people of this area will have a very hard Ramadan [beginning on 1-2 August] this year,” said Islam.

 Photo: Ahmed Orko Nur/IRIN

A marooned house in Cox's Bazar

Deforestation
“Continuous raining of up to a week is nothing new in the monsoon. What is really surprising, however, is the unprecedented level of flooding here,” said Muhammad Babul Azam, a technical manager for CARE Bangladesh.
Widespread deforestation of nearby hills and woodlands is the likely causes, he said.
“When you flatten a hill and chop down trees, the soil is loosened. This loose soil then washes away and accumulates in the rivers and channels, reducing their capacity for holding water. Then, the rivers overflow very easily. As the channels are clogged up, the water cannot flow away,” he said.
Meanwhile, efforts to assist those affected are already under way, according to the DRRO. More than 300 tons of rice and other food relief have been distributed.
“The next phase of relief work - providing them with more food, purified water, building materials and other essentials - will start very soon,” Islam said.
According to the Bangladesh Meteorological Department on 26 July, light to moderate rain and thunderstorms are expected to continue in the area for the next 24 hours.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93335

MALNUTRITION: Pakistan: Mobile clinics protect children from malnutrition

David Youngmeyer, UNICEF
SINDH PROVINCE, Pakistan (July 11, 2011) — The battle against child malnutrition in Pakistan's flood-affected Sindh Province is reaching even the smallest, most isolated villages with the help of UNICEF-supported mobile health teams.
They make regular community visits to identify malnourished children and pregnant women. They give medicines and vital nutritional support such as take-home supplies of ready-to-use therapeutic food, which is essential for malnourished children. They also reinforce healthy behavior such as breastfeeding, basic nutrition, and good health and hygiene.
UNICEF correspondent Chris Niles reports on efforts to prevent malnutrition in the aftermath of Pakistan's floods.
Hajani is one of the mothers who attended a clinic operating in the small village of Suleman Kehari, in Thatta District of southern Sindh Province. Wearing a traditional dupata scarf, and cradling her young son in her arms, Hajani looks happy to share her own experience.
"Before coming to this center, my child would not eat anything," she says. "I got this food for my child from here. I give him one sachet every day. He has now started to take milk too and has started to gain weight."
The clinic is run by UNICEF implementing partner Merlin. It is one of 226 mobile health teams and 84 static health units which UNICEF is supporting throughout southern Sindh. UNICEF rapidly scaled up its nutrition interventions after a recent survey by the Sindh Department of Health identified critical levels of malnutrition among flood-affected children in Sindh Province.

Emergency malnutrition rates

© UNICEF Pakistan/2011
A mother and her child in Suleman Kehari village in southern Sindh Province, Pakistan. The entire village was displaced but has now returned home. With high malnutrition rates, UNICEF is helping to ensure mothers and children have adequate nutrition.

The survey found that the Global Acute Malnutrition rate—which indicates the number of moderately and severely malnourished children—among children between 6 and 59 months old was more than 21% in southern Sindh. For children in northern Sindh, the rate was about 23%. These rates are well above the World Health Organization’s 15% emergency threshold which triggers a humanitarian response.
Child malnutrition is the single biggest contributor to under-five mortality, increasing the risk of infections and slowing recovery from illness. Dr. Ayesha Riaz, UNICEF Nutrition Early Recovery Working Group Coordinator for South Sindh, says that the mobile clinics provide an important way to reach children and mothers, even in remote areas.
"The clinics go to where families are and assess the nutritional status of children and mothers in the community. Once we have identified cases of need, we can provide assistance such as take-home supplies of therapeutic and supplementary food, health and hygiene sessions, and on-going monitoring to ensure progress," she says.
UNICEF Representative in Pakistan Dan Rohrmann, who visited the health clinic at Suleman Kehari village, was impressed with the work that is being done to improve child malnutrition rates.

Nutrition vital for future
© UNICEF Pakistan/2011 A health worker examines a child in Suleman Kehari village in southern Sindh Province, Pakistan. Malnutrition rates are very high and UNICEF has established a mobile clinic to keep mothers and children healthy.

Last year's monsoon floods had a devastating impact on Sindh Province. Huge numbers of displaced families had little food or food that was of poor nutritional quality. Food security continues to be an issue as the floods wiped out many family's livestock and crops.
"We know that the effects of malnutrition on children under three years of age can have a big impact on their later life, affecting cognitive development, educational attainment and later economic productivity. It is vital that children have access to high standards of healthcare and that they can grow and develop into healthy adults," he says.
UNICEF is working closely with the Government of Sindh and other partners to improve the nutritional status of children and women. Nutrition is also a key focus of the UN Delivering as One Program, where UNICEF pools its resources and expertise with other UN agencies to maximize results for children and families.
http://www.unicefusa.org/news/news-from-the-field/unicef-food-security-pakistan.html

POVERTY: PAKISTAN: Preparing for the monsoon

ISLAMABAD, 22 July 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Kamila Hyat/IRIN

Tents in Pakistan. The fact that many people live in indequate housing puts them at greater risk when calamity occurs

Muhammad Gul has built a stone wall around his home in a village near Mingora, the main city in Swat Valley, in Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, and hopes it can keep away rainwater during the just-started monsoon season.

“My house was badly damaged last year,” he told IRIN. “But this year I have put up a wall to protect it,” he said pointing to the 1.5m tall circular wall.
The 2010 monsoon rains flooded vast tracts of land across the country, affecting over 20 million people. The floods caused extensive damage to property especially in Sindh Province, and killed at least 1,200 people.
Mingora was one of the areas devastated by the floods.
This year, the Met Office has predicted a normal monsoon season. “There is little fear of floods this year,” Muhammad Riaz, chief meteorologist in Lahore, told IRIN. But Gul is apprehensive and is not taking chances.
The rains have started, according to the Met Office, and strategies are in place to ensure that even if the rains flood parts of the country, the harm can be minimized, the government says.
Sixty-five percent of Pakistan's annual rainfall occurs between June and September. The monsoon season begins in July and intensifies in the middle of the month.

Flood plans
“Two plans for floods have been worked out, including a plan for the worst scenario under which a maximum of six million people could be affected and a likely scenario under which 2.2 million people could be probable victims,” Ahmed Kamal, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), told IRIN.
“Detailed contingency plans have been worked out ahead of the monsoon and we have spent most of 2011 doing this,” he added.
All stakeholders, he said, have been taken on board - including the Pakistan Meteorological Department, Irrigation Department, Federal Flood Commission and the director generals of the Provincial Disaster Management Authorities - to minimize risks.
Since the start of the month, the NDMA has also been conducting training workshops for officials in various parts of the country on flood preparedness.
Major humanitarian agencies, too, say they are well-prepared. “We have a contingency plan in place, our warehouses are stocked with provisions to meet any flood emergency and we are coordinating on the ground with our local partners, though right now we can talk only hypothetically and have to go with what the Met Office is saying,” Michael O’Brien, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said.

Lessons learned?
There is also evidence that lessons have been learnt from the devastation of last year. “We have received orders to build new dykes where needed, repair old ones, ensure they are not breached as happened last year when influential people tried to save their own lands by deliberately diverting water to other areas,” an irrigation official in Sindh Province who asked not to be named told IRIN.
He also said people living “near waterways” would be moved immediately if there was any danger of flooding.
But according to the Karachi-based NGO Urban Resource Centre, people who live in inadequate housing - often made of clay, timber and bits of cloth - remain vulnerable because the poor quality of their homes adds to risks people face during rains. It estimates that 50 percent of people in big cities live in shanty dwellings.
"People are hoping and praying the monsoon will show mercy on them this year as they are still picking up the pieces of their lives," said Ijaz Habib, nutrition specialist for the NGO Merlin. "What happened last year was like nothing anyone has seen before."
According to Ea Suzanne Akasha, psychosocial delegate with the Danish Red Cross: “Some people are still afraid of the sound of running water. Some are having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. Some now fear the next flood is going to come and they don’t know how they are going to cope.”

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93299

POVERTY: Southern Africa floods cause highest death toll in recent years

JOHANNESBURG, 21 July 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Hannah McNeish/IRIN : Flood waters in Madagascar after Cyclone Bingiza struck the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar on 14 February 2011

The death toll in southern Africa during the 2010-2011 rainy season (December-May) was “markedly higher” than in recent years, with 477 people killed, compared to seven during the same period in 2009-2010, and 212 in 2008-2009, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In terms of fatalities, Angola was the most acutely affected country, with 234 killed, 67 missing and 204,000 displaced, followed by Namibia with 104 deaths and South Africa with 91, OCHA’s Regional Office for Southern Africa said in its Overview of the 2010-2011 Rainfall Season.
“In the case of Namibia and South Africa, the high fatality rate is mainly due to the fact that flooding occurred in areas that do not usually experience flooding, while for Angola, there are indications that southern and western Angola received significantly higher rainfall than usual,” the report said.

About 708,000 people in the region were affected by floods and storms, with an estimated 314,361 displaced. During the 2008-2009 flood season nearly twice this number were affected, but the death toll was half as much.  

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93294

MALNUTRITION: Pakistan: Loss of livestock, poultry results in malnutrition

Shahid Shah : July 08, 2011


 Loss of livestock and poultry in floods of last fiscal year has resulted in malnutrition of millions of people in the country.

Analyst and Head of Institute of Social Movements Pakistan Zulfiqar Shah told The News that there was not a situation of starvation as food was available to the flood-hit people, but there were cases of malnutrition as people were not receiving milk and its bi-products due to loss of hundreds of thousands of animals.
Livestock sector has emerged as a priority sector only recently. In the rural areas, livestock is considered a securer source of income for small farmers and the landless.
According to the latest Economic Survey of Pakistan, livestock is the best hope for poverty alleviation as it can uplift the socioeconomic conditions of our rural masses.
The livestock accounted for approximately 55.1 percent of the agriculture value added and 11.5 percent of GDP during 2010-11.
Official figures show that an estimated 187,000 large animals, 253,380 small ones (total 440,380 animals) and 9.94 million poultry were lost to the floods.
The total loss in livestock (large and small animals) and poultry stood at 0.3 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively.
The steps taken by the government included establishment of emergency relief camps, treatment and vaccination of animals, and supply of fodder in the flood-affected areas. In these camps, 7.2 million animals were treated and 7.9 million animals were vaccinated.
One official document says that the overall thrust of the government’s livestock policy is to foster “private sector-led development with public sector providing enabling environment through policy interventions and capacity building for improved livestock husbandry practices”.
The emphasis will be on improving per unit animal productivity and moving from subsistence to market-oriented rearing and commercial livestock farming to meet the domestic demand and export surplus.
The objective is to exploit the potential of livestock sector and use it as an engine for economic growth and food security for the country, leading to rural population empowerment and rural socioeconomic development. Livestock sector’s prospective role towards rural economic development may well be recognised from the fact that 35-40 million rural people depend on livestock.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=56474&Cat=3&dt=7/8/2011

POVERTY: .Somalis displaced by drought hit by Mogadishu rains

15 July 2011



Somalis displaced by the drought find flooded camps in Mogadishu

People who have fled the drought in Somalia to camps near the capital Mogadishu have now been hit by days of heavy rain.
Aid workers say five people, including three children, had died of exposure. A doctor told the BBC that people could not find shelter from the cold rain.
The victims have been displaced by a drought that has devastated large parts of the Horn of Africa.
Some 10 million people are said to be affected across the region.
Osman Duflay, a Mogadishu doctor, told the BBC's World Update programme that camp residents were facing "disaster".
Extended drought is causing a severe food crisis in the Horn of Africa, which includes Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. Weather conditions over the Pacific means the rains have failed for two seasons and are unlikely to return until September.
Food shortages are affecting up to 12 million people. The UN has not declared a famine but large areas of the region are now classified as in crisis or emergency, with malnutrition affecting up to 35-40% of children under five.
The humanitarian problem is made worse by ongoing conflicts, which means that until July militant groups had only allowed aid organisations limited access to large parts of southern Somalia and eastern Ethiopia.
Since the beginning of 2011, around 15,000 Somalis each month have fled into refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia looking for food and water. The refugee camp at Dadaab, in Kenya, has been overwhelmed by 370,000 people.
Farmers unable to meet their basic food costs are abandoning their herds. High cereal and fuel prices had already forced them to sell many animals before the drought and their smaller herds are now unprofitable or dying.
The refugee problem may have been preventable. However, violent conflict in the region has deterred international investment in long-term development programmes, which may have reduced the effects of the drought.
Development aid would focus on reducing deforestation, topsoil erosion and overgrazing and improving water conservation. New roads and infrastructure for markets would help farmers increase their profits.
The result of climate conditions, conflict and lack of investment is that 6.7 million people in Kenya and Ethiopia are currently existing on food rations, and relief agencies estimate 2.6 million in Somalia will need assistance a new emergency operation.
 "Especially the under-fives and the pregnant women, they're suffering from malnutrition and communicable disease like the measles, diarrhoea and pneumonia," he said.
Earlier this week Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian affairs co-ordinator for Somalia, told the BBC that the country was close to famine.
"The next few months are critical," he said.
Last week Somalia's al-Shabab Islamist militia - which has been fighting the Mogadishu government - said it was lifting its ban on foreign aid agencies provided they did not show a "hidden agenda".
The drought is said to be the worst affecting by the Horn of Africa's in 60 years.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is reporting a dramatic rise in malnutrition rates even in the part of Somalia normally considered to be the breadbasket of the country.
Somalia, wracked by 20 years of conflict, is worst affected.
Some 3,000 people flee each day for neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya which are struggling to cope.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14165509

MALNUTRITION: ETHIOPIA: Floods pose new threat to food security

ADDIS ABABA, 14 July 2011 (IRIN)
 Photo: Ben Parker/IRIN
Expected flooding between August and September could exacerbate food insecurity for up to 4.5 million Ethiopians (file photo)

While the ongoing drought has seriously undermined the food security of up to 4.5 million people in Ethiopia, a threat posed by expected flooding during the second half of 2011 could exacerbate the situation, say meteorological officials.
Ethiopia's meteorological agency has forecast normal to above-normal rainfall during the June-September rainy season, with the risk of flooding in western, northwestern and central areas. Areas around Lake Tana in Amhara region, parts of Gambella and along the Awash basin in Afar region are likely to be affected by floods.
"Parts of these areas, particularly in low-lying [areas] and near riverbanks, could face flooding as we usually anticipate in this season," said Diriba Koricha, the director of Forecast and Early Warning Department at the agency.
However, "as the season progresses in August and September, swift but heavy rainfalls could result in flooding anywhere", he said, adding that further preparation was needed to prevent any humanitarian crisis.
Launching an appeal on 11 July for drought aid, Ethiopia's Agriculture Ministry said the country's food security situation had deteriorated since the beginning of the year to the La Niña-induced drought currently ravaging parts of the country.
The country requires US$398 million for food and non-food aid between July and December 2011.
The government made the appeal as humanitarian actors reported funding shortfalls.
Judith Schuler, World Food Programme (WFP) Ethiopia spokeswoman, said many of its food assistance activities in Ethiopia "face significant funding shortfalls".
WFP has a shortfall of 120,000MT of food, equivalent to about $112 million, until the end of the year.
"Due to this lack of funding, WFP reduced food rations in relief operations in certain areas of the country from March onwards," said Schuler.
A recent report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ethiopia indicated that food rations had been allocated without vegetable oil and with a reduced amount of corn-soya blend.
Schuler said: "In order to resume full rations for all people badly hit by the drought, new contributions are urgently needed. Compounding the issue is time: from the moment a contribution is confirmed, it takes between four to five months until the food arrives in the country."
Between January and June, WFP assisted 269,300 moderately malnourished Ethiopian children under five through the targeted supplementary food (TSF) programme for malnourished children under five and pregnant and nursing mothers.

 Photo: Jane Some/IRIN Ethiopia's food security has deteriorated since the beginning of the year due to drought (file photo)

Somali refugees
The food needs are not just limited to Ethiopians; an influx of refugees from Somalia to Ethiopia has also been recorded.
"Numbers are increasing on a daily basis, and the nutritional status of the refugees upon... arrival is worrying," said Schuler, adding that a March/April survey had found malnutrition rates of 45 percent among newly arrived children under five at a camp in Dolo Ado, at the border between Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.
At least 55,000 new Somali refugees have been recorded in Ethiopia since January, according to the UN. The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has set up a new camp to help them.
Eastern Africa is experiencing what the UN has described as the most severe food crisis in the world today.
On 4 July, international charity Oxfam GB made a £50 million ($80 million) appeal for drought-hit eastern Africa, saying at least 12 million people had been pushed "into a fight for survival".
"The aid effort faces enormous hurdles; there is not enough money to buy food in the quantities required and the price of maize has risen by up to 40 percent since a year ago in the region," Jane Cocking, Oxfam's humanitarian director, said. "The cost of fuel needed to transport food to the epicentre has also shot up."
On 1 July, the NGO, Christian Aid, also launched an emergency humanitarian appeal to help provide water, food and animal feed in the region.
"People are desperate and if we don't act now we could be looking at one of the worst humanitarian situations the world has seen in a long time," warned Nick Guttmann, Christian Aid's humanitarian director.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93225

MALNUTRITION: Harvesting Momentum to Improve Nutrition in Zambia

Rakesh Katal of Concern tells how the program protects crops from natural disasters such as flooding and drought.


Zambia’s economy continues to show encouraging growth, which now stands at seven percent. And in the past year, Zambia’s agricultural sector produced a record food surplus, with a grain harvest of 2.8 million tons that literally overwhelmed storage capacity. This surplus was underpinned by subsidies for small-scale farmers, generous minimum price guarantees offered by the Zambia’s Food Reserve Agency and good rainfall in previous years. Nonetheless, the very poorest and most vulnerable families are still struggling to survive.
The terrain in remote areas of Zambia is rough; to reach communities you must cross rivers, wetlands and vast swathes of sandy territory. Concern is the only development organization working in some of these remote areas, such as districts in the Western Province.
These districts are characterized by poor infrastructure, few or no services, and high dependency on natural resources for livelihoods. The soil and forests are under tremendous pressure from very heavy use, as well as from droughts and flooding.
Reaching marginalized groups and implementing programs at the required scale to alleviate poverty is a challenge: our human and financial resources are stretched to capacity. But we have evidence of what works—and we know that adequate investment in interventions in nutrition, livelihoods, and agriculture would significantly reduce poverty and hunger.
Concern is showing farmers how to restore the soil and at the same time diversify their crops to provide better nutrition for their families and produce a surplus that they can sell in the marketplace. We work with communities to set up natural resource committees and natural resource “user groups,” whose initiatives—in conjunction with efforts by local state officials—include canal clearing to prevent flooding. We have also prioritized establishing disaster management committees in communities to protect against future damage from droughts and floods.
We face significant obstacles, but I see signs of progress and momentum every time I visit a farming village. I know that what we’re doing works when a farmer shows me how his harvest and income have improved, and when a person living with HIV is no longer isolated because she has access to support groups and a source of income to live a healthy and productive life. I have seen communities minimize their vulnerability to disasters, and begin to view themselves as participants in development, rather than as passive recipients.
As I prepare to attend the upcoming “1,000 Days to Scale Up Nutrition for Mothers & Children: Building Political Commitment” meeting in Washington, D.C., I am excited to join civil society leaders and government officials to rally greater investment to save lives. I welcome this opportunity to share experiences and ideas for supporting the SUN Roadmap.
I hope to act as a voice for people like Wamunyima Iluya, an extremely poor farmer in rural Senanga District. He shared his story of change with me, saying, “Before, we were farming according to tradition, but we have learned ways to improve harvests and make farming a more profitable business.”
Beyond the June 13th meeting, my team and I will continue to work at national level in Zambia, collaborating with Government agencies such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, the Ministry of Health, and the National Food and Nutrition Commission (NFNC). For instance, the NFNC is developing Zambia’s new Food and Nutrition Strategic Plan, a policy dialogue in which Concern actively participates.
These are exciting and encouraging times in Zambia in terms of nutrition. Under the Sixth National Development Plan, the Zambian Government aims to “improve the nutritional status of the Zambian population through the provision of quality nutrition services and increased availability, access and utilization of quality and safe foods.” Concern is committed to playing its part in making this aspiration become a reality.
In collaboration with local partners, the Government, and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Concern has launched the “Realigning Agriculture to Improve Nutrition (RAIN)” project, which targets women farmers and will help improve their nutritional status, as well as that of their families. The project is directly linked to the interventions outlined in the SUN Roadmap: working to prevent undernutrition and stunting by focusing on the critical 1,000 days from pregnancy to age two. We will share learning and evidence from this project on how best to link agriculture and nutrition with the international community.
My hope is that Concern’s programs contribute to efforts that make the growing international commitment to scale up nutrition a reality.
http://povertynewsblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Zambia

MALNUTRITION: North Korea: The politics of hunger

May 12th 2011

IT IS the time of year when the previous harvest has been nearly eaten and the next one has just been planted. Time, in other words, to worry about North Korea’s perennially hungry masses.



North Korea had long grown dependent on food handouts from its estranged brother, South Korea, and from the United States. But the South’s current president, Lee Myung-bak, has taken a tougher line, tying assistance to less provocative behaviour by Kim Jong Il’s nuclear-tipped regime. So Mr Kim’s envoys have travelled further afield of late, reportedly doing the rounds of Europe.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) is now preparing to distribute emergency aid to 3.5m North Koreans suffering from “severe malnutrition”. Programme officials are concerned about the possibility of a famine on the scale of the one in the mid-1990s, in which over 1m died. They blame a series of shocks, including the coldest winter in years, widespread flooding and an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among livestock. Some 297,000 tonnes of cereal and 137,000 tonnes of fortified blended food must reach the most vulnerable.
With murky data, and diplomats and foreign-aid staff restricted in where they may travel, not everyone agrees with the WFP’s assessment. Certainly, estimating North Korea’s food needs has long been a politicised business. A member of South Korea’s ruling Grand National Party, Yoon Sang-hyun, says that the North is hoarding 1m tonnes of rice, playing up a shortfall in order to get aid on the cheap. Some say Mr Kim wants the aid in order to announce a bumper harvest in 2012. That year is the 100th anniversary of North Korea’s founder, Mr Kim’s father, Kim Il Sung. Something approaching paradise has long been promised to North Koreans for 2012.
The South’s unification minister, Hyun In-taek, also suspects North Korea of exaggerating its troubles for political gain. Certainly, he says, starvation has begun to overshadow other topics that the South would rather discuss, namely denuclearisation and the North’s refusal to apologise for last year’s shelling of Yeonpyeong island and the presumed sinking in March 2010 of a naval corvette. This is apparently a view shared by Daily NK, an activist network and news source which says that the price of rice in the black market has actually fallen by around half in recent months.
Others, such as Good Friends, a South Korean Buddhist charity long working in the North, insist the situation is very bad—and that tuberculosis is on the rise owing to malnutrition. Rimjingang, a magazine with reporters secretly stationed in North Korea, says that in North Pyongan province by the Chinese border even the army is going hungry.
Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, both at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, say that even though the WFP has overstated the case, “all indicators point to a deteriorating food-security situation”. What is more, they take issue with Mr Lee’s belief that withholding aid will temper the North’s behaviour. Rather, they argue, the response will merely be for the hermit kingdom to “hunker down and tighten repression”. The regime has been consistent chiefly in showing complete disregard for its people.
But arguing is pointless. Widespread malnutrition and starvation in at least some parts of the country is a reality in North Korea. For Jimmy Carter, the former American president, who visited Pyongyang recently, the fault lies mainly with South Korea and the United States. That is presumably tonic to the real culprit for the hunger, the chubby Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il.
http://www.economist.com/node/18682803?story_id=18682803&fsrc=rss

POVERTY: Pakistan: One year after floods, Pakistan's poor struggle to cope

Author: Malcom Brabant : 20.04.2011
 Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Malnourishment remains a problem among children

The effects of last year's flooding in Pakistan are painfully visible amongst the country's poorest people. Child malnutrition is rampant, and aid is slow to come as other world events overshadow the misery.
With the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East grabbing headlines worldwide, aid agencies are struggling to keep a separate disaster in the public consciousness.
Child malnutrition in Pakistan constitutes "a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions," they warn.
Large swaths of nation were inundated by floods last July, forcing people in remote rural communities to seek assistance from organizations like the UN children's agency UNICEF. Pakistan still needs money to recover from the emergency, even as the floods' one-year anniversary approaches.
Statistics for the whole of Pakistan aren't yet available, but numbers from the southernmost and most afflicted Sindh province suggest 25 percent of children under the age of five are severely malnourished.
"It's truly as bad as I've seen in the worst emergencies in the world," Karen Allen, deputy director of UNICEF's permanent mission in Pakistan, told Deutsche Welle. "The floods just pushed people over the edge."


 Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Aid organizations call the situation a 'humanitarian disaster of epic proportions'

The crisis is the consequence of a combination of factors including: extreme poverty, poor diet, poor health, exposure to disease, and inadequate sanitation and hygiene. A lack of education makes things worse.
"I didn't know my child had died," a woman in a tent camp for flood victims said of her 1-year-old daughter Khallida. "I thought she'd gone to sleep. Then I saw my mother preparing a funeral shroud. And they gathered to take the baby for burial."
In another part of Sindh province, Zeba Iqtiyar, a mother of eight, has managed to save her four-month-old son Gulza from a similar fate.
She took Gulza to a UNICEF stabilization center, where staff assessed that he was on the cusp of severe malnourishment. Staff sent the pair back home to her small holding with a pack of high-nutrition formula designed to boost the infant's growth.
"I feed my baby rice, chick peas, pulses; sometimes plain bread," Iqtiyar told Deutsche Welle as chickens scratched in the dirt outside her mud hut. "We're poor. We eat what we can afford."


 Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: International awareness is lacking for a number of reasons

Pakistan is estimated to need $2 billion (1.4 billion euros) to recover. Only half of that money was forthcoming. Kristen Elsby, UNICEF's communications chief in Pakistan, is one of those struggling to raise international awareness about the problem.
"Millions of people of children are greatly at risk from malnutrition," she told Deutsche Welle. "Babies are dying and mothers are at risk of dying during child birth."
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6504967,00.html

POVERTY: MALAWI: Thousands hit by flooding in north

20 April 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: IRIN
Households that lost crops will need food aid for months to come

At least 4,600 families in Malawi’s northern Karonga district have been affected by flooding since the beginning of April after heavy rain caused a dyke to collapse along the North Rukuru River.
The full extent of flood water damage to crops, homes, sanitation and livelihoods was still unclear, said Atupele Kapile, a humanitarian affairs officer with the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office, which has worked with government departments, NGOs and other UN agencies to conduct a rapid assessment of the affected areas.
“Some places were too water-logged to access so we’re waiting for more information,” she told IRIN.
According to a report summarizing their findings released on 17 April, four lives were lost and 541 homes swept away by the floods. Many more houses were damaged and more than 1,000 hectares of crops lost.
“In terms of crop damage, it’s very difficult to say how big the impact will be,” said Kapile. “We’re recommending an in-depth analysis and assessment, because [those crops] represent food for the next season.”
The report notes that root crops such as cassava were likely to be badly affected by water-logging while the flooding of fields of mature maize in some areas would probably lead to “a significant loss in production”.
Stagnant water and contaminated water sources resulting from the flooding of latrines have raised fears about outbreaks of diarrhoea and water-borne diseases such as cholera. Kapile said her agency was distributing water treatment materials to families in the affected areas and educating them about the health risks.
Three schools and two churches are serving as temporary shelters for about 340 families and the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) is distributing food and materials to repair collapsed roofs.
Gift Mafuleka, deputy director of the DoDMA, said farmers whose crops were lost would be provided with inputs such as seeds, fertilizer and irrigation so that they could grow winter crops and, after four or five months, survive without food assistance.
Mafuleka said her department had been told to expect above-average rainfall this year. “But as a department we don’t get funding for preparedness, only when a disaster happens.”
Many parts of southern Africa have been hit by heavy flooding since December 2010, with northern Namibia, Lesotho, Angola, Mozambique and South Africa among the affected countries.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92531