APA-Gaborone (Botswana) More than 57.8 million people in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) population are in need of food assistance this year due to poor harvest, the regional bloc said on Monday.
In a statement following a virtual meeting of ministers responsible for agriculture and food security in the 16 member states, SADC said the number of food-insecure people across the region rose by 14 percent this year from 50.8 million in 2022.
“The ministers noted with great concern, the high numbers of food and nutritionally insecure people in the region (57.8 million which is an increase from 50.8 million the previous year),” the bloc said.
The figure translates to at least 15 percent of SADC’s 380 million-plus population.
The ministers urged member states to continue implementing and domesticating the SADC Food and Nutrition Security Strategy in national food and nutrition strategies to improve food and nutrition security.
They called on countries in the region to, among others, adopt measures to climate-proof their agricultural sectors as well as to strengthen water harvesting techniques in the wake of extreme weather conditions that have caused havoc across SADC in recent years.
“They urged member states to enhance early warning systems and early action in order to reduce the impact of disasters; accelerate adaptation to climate change including promoting irrigation and climate smart agriculture, as well as water harvesting and storage from heavy rains to be used during drier periods; and, put in place coordinated and timely scaling up of multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance to prevent extreme food insecurity and acute malnutrition outcomes and excess mortality.”
The call came as a number of countries in the region have experienced flooding over the past few years that have seen crop production affected in countries such as Malawi and Mozambique.
Several other countries have witnessed unprecedented droughts, triggering serious humanitarian crises.
JN/APA