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Household Economy Assessment: Nyaminyami (Kariba Rural) District - Save the Children Report, 21 June 2002
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6. RECOMMENDATIONS
The following recommendations are in line with the discussion above, and are also consistent with recommendations made by community members themselves during the assessment:
- Food aid needs to be provided to the poor group for a 10-month period from June 2002 to March 2003, and for the middle group from September 2002 to March 2003. The food aid could be discontinued if there is a reasonable harvest in 2003. A ration rate equivalent to 1,575 kcal per person per day (75% of minimum needs) is recommended due to the existence of some other coping mechanisms. This means feeding approximately 30,000 people from June, and 36,000 from September. This translates to 3,420 MT of grain, and an additional 812 MT of beans and oil.
- If GMB deliveries of food for sale on the market are inadequate, it may be necessary to increase the ration rate to 100% of minimum needs.
- The current food aid interventions by Save the Children and Christian Care need to continue, therefore. Further coordination is required to minimise overlaps and gaps in coverage.
- Consideration should be given to blanket feeding of the community from September, as the better off constitute a small proportion of the population, and therefore the costs of targeting may not make such an exercise worthwhile.
- As far as possible, food-for-work interventions should be considered as a means of delivering food, except during the planting season when people will need to work on their farms. The scale of needs and the relative cost of FFW over free distributions, however, means that it is unlikely to be feasible to use FFW on a large scale. FFW projects should prioritise rehabilitation of agricultural production.
- The GMB will need to ensure the continued availability of maize in the markets.
- The Government's public works project should either be converted to a food-for-work project (as food availability is a problem), or else it should be considered complementary to food aid interventions, enabling households to meet other non-food needs. Payments for public works should be made promptly.
- Additional support for agricultural rehabilitation will need to be provided in terms of input support. This will include seeds and fertiliser. Further consideration will need to be given to how the issue of draught power can be addressed. Input packs should also be sensitive to the needs of HIV/AIDS affected households, whose ability to cultivate will be constrained by labour shortages.
- Tsetse control needs to be improved urgently so that further livestock deaths are limited. Once control has been strengthened, some form of re-stocking programme will need to be undertaken.
- The perennial damage to crops caused by wildlife needs to be addressed by the construction of an appropriate fence around Matusadona Game Park. Depending on materials required and resources available, this may be an option for a FFW project.
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