Zimbabwe 2012

19 November 2012: According to the 2012 Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee’s rural livelihood assessment, food insecurity in Zimbabwe this lean season has started much earlier than usual, with people already facing hardship in September. The same assessment estimates that approximately 1.6 million people (nearly one in five rural people in Zimbabwe) are likely to need emergency food assistance during the peak of the coming hunger season between January and March 2013.

Late and erratic rains and reduced planted areas have contributed to reducing the national cereal harvest by 33 per cent this year. Economic challenges, including a lack of diversified livelihoods and the rising cost of living, have also contributed to the food- and income-insecure situation, which is expected to worsen as the lean season progresses.

In response, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated US$2 million to help the World Food Programme (WFP) protect lives, livelihoods and self-reliance in vulnerable households. The allocation will allow WFP to provide food assistance to 200,000 people for five months through cash transfers for purchase of cereals, and it will contribute to the logistics costs of transporting 35,000 mt of Government grain to deficit areas. The grain will feed 160,000 people for five months.