E16M FOR HUNGER: EMASWATI FLOOD NDMA

MBABANE – Many emaSwati are hungry and this has been demonstrated by the influx of people who flooded the offices of the National Disaster Management Agency seeking food or cash assistance.

As a result, the NDMA has clarified that the money that has been released by the European Commission to Sub-Saharan countries, including the Kingdom of Eswatini, was not enough to cater for all food insecure families. The European Commission (ECO) mobilised a humanitarian aid package of over E366 million to help address emergency food needs and support vulnerable people in Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Eswatini is set to receive E16 million. NDMA Chief Executive Officer Russell Dlamini said 232 000 emaSwati were food insecure and in dire need of food and cash assistance. However, he said only 122 500 people would be assisted through ECO funding, other funds from government and other stakeholders and the assistance would not reach 109 000 people who are also in dire need of food help.

Received

Dlamini said this was because the money they received from ECO and government funding was inadequate to cater for all the needy families. Dlamini said since the news of the funding from ECO was aired through the media, there were people who have been knocking at the doors of the agency seeking food and cash assistance. Dlamini said of the 122 000 that would be assisted, 40 000 would be assisted by the ECO funding, 12 000 by Red Cross, 9 500 by government and others would be assisted by the World Food Programme. He stated that it would be those assisted by government who would get food hampers and the rest would be getting cash transfers from the aforementioned entities.

He said the reason they opted for cash transfers was because that modality reached a wider group because it was cutting all commodity handling expenses like storing and transporting of the food, which also entails hiring and paying people. “The reason we are communicating all this is because we want to eliminate the assumption from the public that we have raised enough money to assist every family that is food insecure. “We have had people coming to us to seek food and financial assistance with the thinking that the funding from ECO was enough for everyone to get a piece of the pie.

Insecure

“Only 52 per cent of the people who are food insecure will be assisted but because it is the government’s responsibility to ensure a food secure nation, other ways are being explored to try and raise enough funding to assist the populace,” he said. The ECO funding comes as large parts of southern Africa are currently in the grip of their harshest drought in decades. In Zimbabwe, over E270 million from this aid package will boost food and nutrition assistance, as well as improving access to basic health care, clean water and providing protection to vulnerable people. The remaining amount will be channelled to providing food assistance and nutrition support in Eswatini, Madagascar, Lesotho and Zambia.

The Southern Africa and Indian Ocean region, as a whole, is prone to natural disasters and oscillates between droughts and floods that are destroying harvests and further weakening fragile communities. Since January 2019, the EU has allocated over E1 billion for humanitarian assistance across the region. The bulk of this funding went for emergency relief assistance in the wake of natural disasters (cyclones Idai and Kenneth), food assistance, and helping at-risk communities equip themselves better to face climate-related disasters.

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