|
| SARPN activities |
|
Food security in Southern Africa: Causes and responses from across the region
18 March 2003, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria
A meeting hosted by the Southern African Regional Poverty Network in collaboration with CARE International and the French Institute of South Africa
|
 |
|
|
|
|
[Background and purpose]
[Programme]
[Participants]
[Papers]
[Related papers]
|
Food security overview
Food insecurity in Lesotho like the rest of Southern Africa is considered as severe due to a number of factors. Persistent drought, hail storms, tornados, excessive rains and other unfavourable natural forces have resulted in continued food deficits. The low exchange rate of Loti to Dollar has also resulted in price increases of imported food commodities, thus aggravating the situation.
The crisis is confirmed by the Emergency Food Security Assessments of 2002 which in May projected that 160,000 (9%) of the rural populations would be in need of food assistance from September to November 2002. However, as cereal stocks depleted, conditions worsened and the number of people in need escalated to 649,483 (36%) in July. As conditions deteriorated even further, in less than three months, (November/December) the numbers of people in need increased by 108,797 to 760,000(425) see Table 1.
|
Table 1: Changes in National and Sub-National Food Security From August to December
Source: LVAC 2002
|
Food insecurity has resulted in hardships on many different sectors of the economy particularly on the households infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, who, even without the food crisis, utilise most of their resources towards meeting medical and funeral expenses. Crisis such as this, therefore, renders them even more vulnerable and limit their ability to cope with the food shortage problems.
This paper describes the food insecurity situation in Lesotho, analyses its effects on the rural communities and on the chronically ill individuals and their families. It further examines the coping strategies that are available to the households to enable them to cope with food shortages as well as limitations faced by the HIV/AIDS affected and infected households in accessing the same strategies. Lastly the paper considers the interventions geared towards ameliorating some of the problems brought about by the crisis and analyses the extent to which they cater for the chronically ill as well.
|
|
Related documents
- 42Kb < 1min (15 pages)
