Mozambique: More than 3M face acute food insecurity; north worst affected – FAO

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Mozambique: More than 3M face acute food insecurity; north worst affected – FAO

7:00 CAT | 15 Jan 2024

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that more than 3 million people in Mozambique are currently experiencing acute food insecurity, especially in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

According to a report released on Thursday by the FAO, around 2.6 million Mozambicans were acutely food insecure between May and September and needed “urgent assistance”. Of these, 126,000 people were in phase 4 of the Integrated Food Security Index (IPC), in an emergency situation, and the remaining 2.5 million in phase 3, in a crisis situation.

The report adds that for the period from October 2023 to March 2024, around 3.3 million people “face acute or higher food insecurity” in Mozambique, equivalent to phase 3 of the IPC, of which 220,000 people are in phase 4, emergency.

“They represent 21 per cent of the population of the districts most affected by shocks [climate and terrorist attacks] in 2023,” the report stresses.

In the province of Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, which since 2016 has been the scene of terrorist attacks that have displaced more than a million people,” the number of people in need of emergency food and assistance remains high” according to the report. It goes so far as to state that 863,000 people in Cabo Delgado live in IPC stage 3 or higher – that is, in acute food insecurity – equivalent to 32% of the total population, in the period between October 2023 and March 2024, an increase of 19 percentage points over the previous period.

“In the south and centre of the country, the number of people in need of assistance is the result of the depletion of food reserves and the impact of ‘El Niño’,” reads the report.

In response to the “threat to food security” in Mozambique, the FAO said, it is “providing high quality certified seeds” to farmers to ensure that “they are able to produce food during the main agricultural season.”

The aim, it explained, is to “partially reduce the risk of food insecurity in the most vulnerable areas.”

For the main agricultural campaign in Cabo Delgado, which is currently underway, the FAO adds that it plans to provide agricultural kits to 24,600 households, supporting 123,000 people, comprising maize and bean seeds and agricultural tools, in 12 of the province’s districts.

In the southern province of Gaza, the FAO is “helping the most vulnerable families to avoid food shortages during the peak of the dry season,” the report states, saying that the aim is to support 2,500 families, totalling 12,500 people, “with access to improved seeds and agricultural tools.

“Through an e-voucher system, where each beneficiary receives a voucher worth 3,200 Meticais [€46] to buy seeds and tools from local traders. The e-voucher card gives access to short-cycle seeds for crops such as maize, beans and vegetables, including tools such as hoes, watering cans and machetes,” the FAO explains.

In addition, the FAO is prioritising “families that lost production as a result of the effects of the bad weather” of the last agricultural season, as well as families headed by people with physical disabilities, women and widows, the elderly or orphaned children, as well as families with pregnant women and families living with children under five and people with chronic illnesses.

Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.

The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the most severe on record in Mozambique: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the biggest ever to hit the country.

In the first quarter of last year, heavy rains and the passage of Cyclone Freddy through the country caused 306 deaths, affected more than 1.3 million people and destroyed 236,000 homes and 3,200 classrooms, according to official government figures.