Southern Africa is currently facing food shortage, leading to a rise in food insecurity in the region. Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe are some of the countries where food insecurity is particularly high. Overall, more than 5.5 million people in the region have been affected.
"Southern Africa is facing a silent food-insecurity emergency," said Catherine Bragg, UN Deputy Humanitarian Chief, who visited Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Bragg was in Southern Africa on a five-day visit to review the food situation in the region and to work with the governments to come up with a feasible solution.
"In Lesotho, about a third of the population does not have enough food to eat or sell. In Zimbabwe, 1.6 million people are expected to be food insecure, and many families are selling their own livestock to cope with this dire situation," she added.
The uptick in food insecurity is attributed to floods and droughts in key food growing regions in Southern Africa. Moreover, while South Africa has enough to export to its neighbors, the fact that it grows genetically modified food crops makes its food exports unwelcome in several African countries. High prices of food commodities in the global market have also led to drop in food imports.
Bragg also spoke with the governments in the Southern African region regarding disaster preparedness and ways to prevent future food insecurity crises.
According to The Standard, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are also lending a helping hand.
The FAO has decided to develop certain "principles for responsible investment in agriculture." The decision comes after a two-year consultation process, and is approved by the 39th Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), according to the UN News Centre.
The principles will work in tandem with the "voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security" endorsed by CFS in May this year after inclusive and participatory negotiations. They will build on existing frameworks and guidelines and not duplicate work by others, the report adds.
By 2050, the UN reckons that an additional 77 million will be going hungry. The organization has been working hard to come up with ways to prevent such a large number of people going hungry in the future, while trying to handle current food shortages.
Further, a Global Strategic Framework (GSF) for Food Security and Nutrition has been adopted this week by the FAO. The GSF will provide a set of guidelines in order to deal with future food crises, with the cooperation and support of global and local organizations.