UN Warns Hunger Crisis in Southern Africa 'On Scale We've Not Seen Before'https://www.dw.com/en/un-warns-hunger-crisis-in-southern-africa-on-scale-weve-not-seen-before/a-52029274An unprecedented number of people in 16 countries across southern Africa are gravely food insecure as climate change wreaks havoc on the region, the UN's World Food Program (WFP) warned on Thursday.
"This hunger crisis is on a scale we've not seen before and the evidence shows it's going to get worse," the WFP's Regional Director for Southern Africa, Lola Castro, said in a statement.
The crisis is impacting 45 million people — many of whom are women and children. The region has been hit hard by repeated droughts, widespread flooding and economic hardship.
Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe are among the hardest-hit.
Many families across the region are already skipping meals, taking children out of school and falling into debt to stave off agricultural losses, the WFP said.
... "The annual cyclone season has begun and we simply cannot afford a repeat of the devastation caused by last year's unprecedented storms," Castro said.
Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi are still reeling from the widespread devastation caused by Cyclone Idai in 2019.
According to the UN, nearly half of Zimbabwe's 15 million inhabitants are living in a state of chronic food security.
An estimated 20% of the population are facing a food crisis in drought-hit Lesotho and Zambia, long considered the region's breadbasket.
--------------------------------------------
Locusts Swarm Into Kenya as UN Warns of 'Extreme Danger' to Food Supplyhttps://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jan/17/locusts-swarm-into-kenya-as-un-warns-of-extreme-danger-to-food-supplyThe UN has warned of a “significant and extremely dangerous” escalation in the number of desert locusts descending on Kenya, as the government strives to contain the threat before it reaches the country’s food-producing regions.
The tropical grasshoppers have been wreaking havoc on Kenya’s neighbours to the north and east, devouring tens of thousands of hectares of crops in Ethiopia and Somalia since last June.
Swarms crossed over into north-east Kenya on 28 December. In a statement released on Monday, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicted that their “potential spread” could include the breadbasket counties of central Kenya.
If it does, the insects could destroy crucial parts of the country’s food supply, at a time when food insecurity is already on the rise owing to droughts and floods last year.
Each square kilometre of locusts in a swarm can eat as much in a day as 35,000 people, according to the FAO. One locust swarm seen in Kenya measured 2,400 sq km.Locust plagues occur intermittently in the Horn of Africa, but this invasion is the worst in 25 years, according to the FAO. Originating at the India-Pakistan border, the insects migrated into Somalia and Ethiopia and destroyed nearly 71,000 hectares of farmland in the two countries.