Photo: Anna Jefferys/IRIN. Farmers in Bafata preparing the land to plant rice seedlings (file photo)
Source: IRIN
BISSAU/DAKAR, 9 May 2013 (IRIN) - The World Food Programme (WFP) has not
received the money it needs to run basic nutrition and food security
schemes in Guinea-Bissau, leaving projects in jeopardy or at a
standstill.
The organization needs US$7 million immediately to cover its food
security and nutrition programme targeting 278,000 people for 2013; and a
further $8 million to extend the project through 2014. The project
involves school-feeding, preventing moderate and acute malnutrition, and
boosting rice production, and was supposed to start in February this
year.
WFP head of programmes Fatimata Sow-Sidibé told IRIN the money is
lacking because traditional donors suspended all development cooperation
following the April 2012 coup.
“We have some promises [from donors],” said Sow-Sidibé, “but the
programme was supposed to start in February and we have no resources to
buy the food we need.”
Traditional donors more or less stopped all development funding in
Guinea-Bissau following the 12 April 2012 coup d’état, leaving
infrastructure projects and basic services at a standstill across the
country, but humanitarian funding was supposedly untouched. LINK The
problem for WFP is that their project spans development and emergency
activities and thus is not just eligible for humanitarian funding.
The African Development Bank also suspended its funding for rural
agricultural development projects, following the coup. The cuts “are
having a direct impact on food security in Guinea-Bissau, where we
already have severe cereal deficits due to inadequate local production,”
said a civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture who preferred
anonymity.
Food insecurity in Guinea-Bissau is driven mainly by an inability of
people to access food because prices are beyond their reach. Most Bissau
Guineans rely on imported rice as they grow mainly cash crops (cashews)
and not grains.
Food prices have risen year on year since 2008 (imported rice is
currently U$1.20 per kg), and the most recent countryside hunger
assessment (2011) cited high prices as the biggest barrier for
vulnerable households to access food.
The coup put off a planned countrywide food security assessment in 2012
but a rapid assessment in the regions of Biombo, Oio and Quinara in June
2012 revealed one in five people were food insecure (regions in the
east were not included in the survey). Some 65 percent of households at
the time had under one month’s supply of food stocks and more people
were resigned to further indebtedness, selling animals and producing
wine from the cashew fruit, to get by.
Cashew crisis
People’s ability to buy food has been severely hampered by a crisis in
the cashew industry: 80-95 percent of Bissau-Guineans depend on cashew
sales to purchase food as well as meet other household expenses. Terms
of trade for cashews have been deteriorating since 2011: In a good year
1kg of rice can be roughly exchanged for 1kg of cashews; this shifted to
1.5kg of cashews to buy 1kg of rice in 2012, and to 2kgs of cashews for
1kg of rice in 2013, according to Ministry of Agriculture and WFP
research. “Everything here is linked to cashews,” said Sow-Sidibé.
The poor terms of trade are linked to a poor 2012 cashew crop, and
plummeting cashew prices following the coup (from 80 US cents per kg in
May 2012 to 50 US cents one month later), and also linked to low fixed
prices on international markets.
Cashew farmers are further stymied by exorbitant petrol prices (US$1.50
per litre) which makes it increasingly expensive for them to get their
crop to market.
Ongoing projects
WFP continues to run food assistance programmes where it can. In two
districts in Gabu, eastern Guinea-Bissau (Mancadndje Dara, Madina
Madinga), and in two districts of Bafata (Djabicunda and Sare Biro), the
organization helps villagers improve their farming techniques to boost
rice production, including giving them improved seeds and helping them
rent animals to get their crops to market. It also helps villagers grow
market gardens to improve their food diversity and boost household
income.
Mutaro Indjai, head of the village committee of rice producers in
Saucunda village in Gabu, told IRIN: “This project helped us improve our
production to last through four months, whereas before we only produced
enough for one month.”
If the project comes to an end, they will continue to use improved
techniques of production, but they would lack the seeds needed to plant
next year. “We won’t have access to improved seeds, nor to the animals
we need to speed up planting and to help us transport our harvest to
nearby villages,” he told IRIN.
Nutrition
Nutrition programmes have also been affected. WFP pushes food diversity,
given that feeding practices are a key component of high chronic
malnutrition levels in Guinea-Bissau.
The organization tries to push a more varied diet (than the
starch-dominated fare given to most infants) including fish soup, peas,
carrots, tomatoes, and millet-based cereal. They also support local NGOs
to make regular visits to health centres and villages on vaccination
days to talk about how to prepare nutrient-rich meals for infants made
out of corn flour, peanut powder, bean powder, oil and sugar, among
others. Programmes target children in their first 1,000 days of life.
Some 17 percent of children under-five are underweight, and 27 percent
are stunted due to inadequate nutrition, according to a December 2012
UNICEF-Ministry of Health nutrition survey.
Hunger specialists fear chronic malnutrition levels will rise if prevention is not stepped up.
UNICEF supports the Ministry of Health to set up nutrition treatment
centres; provides therapeutic food for severely malnourished children;
and helped update the government’s strategy to manage acute
malnutrition, in February 2013. “Lack of funding, very few partners in
nutrition, and limited human resources trained in nutrition” are the
major challenges facing UNICEF, said Victor Suhfube Ngongalah, head of
child survival there. UNICEF needs US$750,000 to implement its projects
in 2013 and 2014.
Guinea Bissau is ranked 176 out of 187 countries assessed in the UN
Development Programme’s Human Development Report. Political instability
has also marred development. Since 1994 no elected president in
Guinea-Bissau has finished his mandate.