Southern Africa is in the throes of an acute humanitarian crisis that is having country-wide impacts in Angola, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as affecting significant populations in Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland. It is estimated that, across the entire region, 7.5 million (plus a further 1.9 million in Angola) people already require immediate food assistance; a figure that will rise to 16.3 million over the January - March 2003 period. Of those in need, at least 60% are under the age of 18 years.
Save the Children UK (SC UK) were the first agency to raise the spectre of an impending crisis in October 2001 and have been at the forefront of efforts to mobilise a response since then. This document details the build up to the crisis and key moments in responding to it by the international humanitarian community. This has been a slow onset emergency, and the potential has existed for a major disaster to be averted through early and pre-emptive interventions. Largely using Malawi and Zimbabwe as case studies, it looks at the roles of the different actors and how successfully they fulfilled their responsibilities in responding to the situation.
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