Nineteen million in Africa still threatened by drought despite improvements, United nations warns.

Nineteen million in Africa still threatened by drought despite improvements, United Nations warns

Despite major improvements in harvest conditions in most of the 20 African countries affected by drought, as many as 19 million people continue to be directly threatened by its consequences, according to the United Nations Office for Emergency Operations in Africa (OEOA).

In a special report on the emergency situation in Africa reviewing 1985 and 1986 emergency needs, the Office stated that improvements in many parts of Africa should not lull the international community into "a sense of complacency and false optimism'. The slightest climatic change, it noted, might push several countries back into a crisis situation.

Some $881 million in emergency relief assistance would be required during 1986, the report stated, of which $330 million would be needed for food aid, including transport costs. In Sudan alone, some $51 million would be necessary for local purchase and transport of food supplies from surplus to deficit areas. Local supplies rather than external food aid, it was stressed, should be purchased wherever possible in order to minimize disruption of local food production.

Estimated non-food needs of $500 million would be an urgent priority for 1986, the report said. Of that, $106 million would be needed for logistics; $55 million for health needs; $64 million for water supply and sanitation; $39 million for relief and survival items; and $161 million for agricultural inputs. In addition, $76 million would be required for refugee/returnee relief programmes in Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.

More than 80 per cent of aid in 1986 was destined for six countries that remain most critically affected: Angola, Botswana, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Sudan. Of the other 14 countries still affected, many would continue to require food aid to cover part of their structural food needs and relief needs of refugees.

The Office called for funds to ensure availability of transport and distribution of relief assistance before the arrival of relief supplies, and prepositioning of relief supplies prior to the rainy season when access to isolated deficit areas became extremely limited.

In reviewing the events of 1985, the report stated that by December donors had pledged or contributed $2.9 billion of the $3.3 billion in requirements determined by the OEOA to cover total emergency needs for 1984-1985. The shortfall included $147 million of unmet food aid...

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