UN to Deliver Food Aid to Zimbabwe

An estimated 4.1 million people are expected to receive aid from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in response to the ongoing hunger crisis people in the country are currently experiencing.

Roughly a quarter of the population will receive cereals, pulses and vegetable oil, though some commentators have said that is not enough.

Home to over 16 million people, around half Zimbabwe’s population is thought to be experiencing severe hunger.

The WFP’s Executive Director, David Beasley, has said that more than 240,000 metric tons of food stuffs will be delivered by the agency.

“With poor rains forecast yet again in the run-up to the main harvest in April, the scale of hunger in the country is going to get worse before it gets better”, he said.

The situation has been compounded by economic instability, with a serious shortage in the availability of bank notes meaning people simply cannot buy food.

Eddie Rowe, country director for the WPF explained that “if we do not reach out and assist these people then the situation would blow up into a major crisis”.

According to state media sources, the planned grain subsidies that would come into force next year will be scrapped which, according to the government, will protect the poorer sections of the population against rising food prices.