UN food agency shuts Southern Africa bureau during drought, citing low funding

Following a withdrawal of USAID funding by President Donald Trump, The United Nations World Food Programme has closed its South African bureau as funding gets tighter to sustain the region amid severe drought.

Reports indicates that President Donald Trump’s decision is in alignment with his “America First” agenda, which has affected many programs around the world including funding to life-saving U.N. programmes.

Reuters postulates that United States is the single largest donor to the WFP – which gives food and cash assistance to people suffering from hunger due to crop shortages, conflict and climate change worldwide – providing $4.5 billion of its $9.8 billion budget last year.

A couple of countries within the region have experienced drought through natural disasters – five of which were  an El Nino-induced drought. The countries include Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Namibia.

The WFP did not quantify how much it would lose from Trump’s aid cuts, but regional spokesperson Tomson Phiri said that the donor funding outlook had become “constrained”.

The agency would consolidate its eastern and southern African operations and run both from Nairobi, Phiri said.

“The goal is to stretch every dollar and target maximum resources to our frontline teams,” he said, adding that the closure would not affect country operations in Southern Africa.

The WFP says that overall, more than 60% of the food it procures is used in operations in the region in which it was purchased.
The agency was already short on funding, having raised just one-fifth of what it needed for the drought response last year.