Drought Prompts First Ever Emergency Food Operation
Karnali Messenger-Karnali Forum for Sustainable development
Marty Logan
URL: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33311
KATHMANDU, May 22 (IPS) - The United Nations World Food Programme is
planning its first ever emergency food operation in Nepal to counter a
severe drought in the country's northwestern hills and mountains.
The three-month plan, likely to be approved at the Rome headquarters of
the U.N. agency this week, envisions 3,800 tonnes of rice and flour
being delivered to the region by trucks, mules and porters, WFP deputy
country director Jean-Pierre de Margerie told IPS.
"We're trying to borrow food from other projects so we can maybe do a
first wave of deliveries mid-June," de Margerie said in an interview
here Sunday, before the WFP held its 'Walk for Hunger' fundraising
program.
"We're confident that if we have the money we'll be able to reach
everyone," he said, adding that a donors' meeting could be held in the
Nepali capital soon after the plan is approved.
Ten of Nepal's 75 districts are affected by the drought, which is
following the driest winter on record in the region, among the poorest
parts of this badly impoverished country.
Earlier this month WFP revealed that 47 percent of Nepalis do not have
enough food to live active, healthy lives. About half of all children
are malnourished. But while the national poverty rate is about 31
percent, in the Karnali region and affected adjoining districts it is
45 percent, said de Margerie.
In normal years there is a "hunger gap" in the Karnali, the period
between harvests when food stocks run out and people survive by buying
food with what little money they earn as day labourers or with cash
repatriated by relatives who have migrated for jobs.
But the drought means that gap will stretch dangerously this year until
the August-September crop is harvested.
Seventy village development committees (VDCs) within the 10 districts
are "severely affected" with crop failures of 75-100 percent, according
to de Margerie, based on three WFP on-the-ground assessments.
"People are starting to resort to damaging coping mechanisms," he said.
"They're starting to cut the number of meals or the size of meals,"
selling livestock and tools and even migrating.
"Many people have already run out of their food stocks and are now
eating herbs and roots to survive," Chandra B Shahi, an MP from Mugu
district, told the 'Nepali Times' newspaper.
In February and March, French NGO Action Contre la Faim visited Mugu
and neighbouring district Humla to assess the health situation,
particularly of children.
"It can be concluded that the acute malnutrition in the 10 surveyed
VDCs is more alarming than expected and is an issue that needs to be
addressed in terms of treatment and also in terms of prevention," says
the report of that mission.
ACF also discovered that children less than 30 months are 5.5 times
more likely to be malnourished than children aged from 30 to 59 months.
And 20.8 percent of women suffered night blindness during their last
pregnancy, a result of Vitamin A deficiency.
The drought and extended hunger gap might have affected these results,
concludes the report. "But the causes of malnutrition are
multi-factorial and the nutrition situation is also linked with a lack
of diversified foods, with poor hygiene practices, with lack of women
education, and very poor availability of public health services".
The remote region, where some villagers must walk five days to reach
districts' headquarters, has long been ignored by the capital
Kathmandu. That neglect has been exacerbated by a decade of a Maoist
insurgency, which, among other things, has chased many local health
workers from their far-flung posts.
To reverse the impact of this disregard, ACF recommends: - Improving
the water and sanitation situation by increasing access to potable
water, implementing irrigations systems and improving hygiene
practices; - Increasing the quantity of food available for people and
helping them to diversify their diet; - Promoting and supporting
iron/folic acid and de-worming distributions that would decrease
anaemia. - Promoting the use of adequately iodized salt.
De Margerie said the WFP emergency operation will include fortified
wheat flour for families with children under two and pregnant or
nursing mothers, along with the rice allotment they will get at the
start and end of a 20-day food for work programme.
The agency does not want to simply give the rice to the people, fearing
that could compromise its long-standing programmes of providing locals
with food in return for local works, such as road building, that
contribute to development, he added.