WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (AFP) - A spiralling food crisis in Africa threatens to envelop 30 million people next year and there is a massive shortfall in required aid, the IMF and World Bank warned Friday.
"The food security situation in southern and eastern Africa has continued to deteriorate since the summer," the International Monetary Fund and World Bank said.
"Donors' response to date has met only half of the midyear appeal for aid by UN agencies," said World Bank vice president for Africa Callisto Madavo and IMF African department director Abdoulaye Bio Tchane.
"Since then, the needs have doubled, and we urge donors to increase the assistance provided to deal with this enormous humanitarian crisis," they said in a public statement to their boards.
A United Nations appeal, backed by the World Bank and IMF chiefs in a July 30 letter, had raised only 286 million dollars.
The initial target was 507 million dollars in food and 104 million dollars in other aid.
Now, another 600 million dollars would be needed in 2003 for aid to Ethiopia and Eritrea.
In southern Africa, food stocks were largely depleted in in the six worst-hit countries: Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The World Food Program estimated up to 14.4 million people were likely to be affected in early 2003, the institutions said.
"In addition, a major food crisis is unfolding in the Horn of Africa, where it is estimated that over 15 million people in Ethiopia and Eritrea will be at risk next year," it said.
HIV/AIDS had lowered farm productivity, increasing the demands for food provision from a declining number of workers.
A larger proportion of the population was now more vulnerable to a lack of food.
"The combination of high HIV/AIDS prevalence and food deficiency is causing an unprecedented dependency on international financial assistance," the IMF and World Bank appeal said.
The extent of the food crisis varied, the institutions said.
About 6.7 million people, half the population, were at risk in Zimbabwe where food production had tumbled to about one third of last year. "Prospects for 2003 are very poor," the report said.
Elsewhere in southern Africa, about one-quarter of the people in Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Swaziland were at risk.
"The crisis will worsen materially over the coming months, although there is the prospect of some relief by next April as the first crops of 2003 are harvested," the IMF and World Bank said.
Aid agencies had sought 150,000 tonnes of cereals for Zambia to help nearly three million people. "However, the refusal of the government to allow food relief agencies to import genetically modified maize -- even if milled before delivery -- has complicated aid delivery."
In the Horn of Africa, half of all Eritreans and one in five Ethiopians were affected by drought. Food shortages were expected to deteriorate rapidly into the beginning of 2003.
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