The US-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) last week warned that the government was likely to block critically needed humanitarian support for the hungry and other marginalised groups as campaigning for polls gathers momentum next year.
If conditions become politically volatile, humanitarian agencies might be called to stop their support, FEWSNET said.
Mugabes government banned all NGO field operations in June 2008 after accusing relief agencies of using aid distribution as a pretext to carry out political work for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his
MDC-T.
The veteran leader, who lost both presidential and parliamentary
elections to Tsvangirai and his party in March 2008 but survived to
fight another day because the opposition leader just fell short of the
required margin to take over the presidency, has in recent years
stepped up pressure against NGOs accusing them of using food aid
distribution as a pretext to campaign for the MDC-T.
He has hinted on calling an early election in 2011 at the end of the
lifespan of a two-year coalition government he was forced to enter
into with Tsvangirai in February last year.
Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, has grappled with severe food
shortages since 2000 when Mugabe launched his haphazard fast-track
land reform exercise that displaced established white commercial
farmers and replaced them with either incompetent or inadequately
funded black farmers.
Shortages of seed and fertilizer have regularly hampered planting
since the land reforms started and international relief agencies
have had to step in with food aid.
FEWSNET also warned of a significant deterioration in Zimbabwes food
security situation until the next harvest around March/April 2011.
Over the next six months, the most likely food security scenario is a
deterioration of food security status across a greater part of the
country with the exception of the central area which is traditionally
a grain surplus region, it said.
An increased number of people in other parts of the country are
likely to become moderately food insecure throughout the lean season
and outlook period from October 2010 to March 2011.
Close to a million Zimbabweans are estimated to require food aid until
the end of the year and the number could rise by more than 40 percent
before the next harvest.
According to a FEWSNET report published in October, the food-insecure
population in Zimbabwes rural areas is estimated at 904 463 between
October and December, up from about 536 000 during the third quarter
of 2010.
It was estimated that at the peak, 1.3 million people would be food
insecure during the 2010/11 consumption year which ends in March next
year.
Post published in: Zimbabwe News