§ Baroness Northoverasked Her Majesty's Government:
What assistance was given to Southern Africa in 2003 from the international community to tackle food shortages across the region. [HL2371]
§ The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos)During the course of the first UN regional appeal for Southern Africa—from July 2002 until June 2003—the international community provided a total of 470 million US dollars of humanitarian assistance; 428 million US dollars of this amount was for food aid programmes. DFID is the second biggest bilateral donor for humanitarian programmes in Southern Africa.
§ Baroness Northoverasked Her Majesty's Government:
What assistance they plan to give in 2004 to tackle forthcoming food shortages across Southern Africa; and what total assistance they estimate will be required from the international community; and [HL2370]
What assistance was given to Southern Africa in 2003 from the United Kingdom to tackle food shortages across the region. [HL2372]
§ Baroness AmosDfID has provided over £30 million to meet humanitarian needs in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho covering the period of the United Nations current regional appeal for Southern Africa, which runs from July 2003 until June 2004. £20 million of this has supported food aid programming in the region, with the majority funding needs in Zimbabwe. In addition, substantial agricultural recovery programmes are being supported in Zambia and Malawi. We are also continuing to support vulnerability monitoring work in the region to improve the targeting of emergency and recovery interventions.
Latest figures from the UN indicate that more than half of the regional humanitarian appeal has been resourced, with 325 million US dollars contributed so far. Food aid needs are almost 70 per cent. funded. Crop forecasts indicate that normal or good harvests are expected this year in Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.
DfID is the second biggest humanitarian donor in Southern Africa.