{"id":198790,"date":"2019-12-04T06:35:17","date_gmt":"2019-12-04T06:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=198790"},"modified":"2019-12-09T08:39:41","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T08:39:41","slug":"zimbabwe-on-brink-of-man-made-starvation-un-expert-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=198790","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe on Brink of Man-made Starvation, UN Expert Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Columbus Mavhunga \u2013 Voice of America Dec 28, 2018<\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">A U.N. official is warning that Zimbabwe is on the brink of starvation, with millions facing food insecurity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Hilal\u00a0Elver,\u00a0U.N.\u00a0special\u00a0rapporteur on the\u00a0right to\u00a0food,\u00a0said Thursday that the government must reduce Zimbabwe&#8217;s dependence on imported food and increase self-sufficiency to counter effects of the struggling economy and recurring drought.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Orpah\u00a0Chiwashira, founder of Faith Community Support,\u00a0a\u00a0charity\u00a0that provides meals to those in need, said\u00a0Zimbabwe&#8217;s struggling economy\u00a0was taking\u00a0a toll.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8220;In the last two months, the organization that gives me 200 kilograms of maize meal per month has been struggling,\u201d\u00a0Chiwashira\u00a0said in\u00a0Kambuzuma,\u00a0one of Harare\u2019s poorest townships, where Faith Community Support was providing a\u00a0group of orphans with\u00a0their only meal of the day. \u201cThey didn&#8217;t have any maize meal to give us. So, we\u00a0have to\u00a0buy maize meal to be able to feed the children. For December, I don&#8217;t even know \u2014 maybe we will get a meal, maybe we won&#8217;t.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6WaW27JA1HI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8212;<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Elver told reporters in Harare that Zimbabwe was facing its worst food shortage in years, with 60 percent of the population food insecure and 5.5 million people dependent on food aid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8220;Child deaths from severe malnutrition have been rising in the past few months,\u201d she said. \u201cNinety percent of Zimbabwean children aged 6 months to 2 years are not consuming the minimum acceptable diet.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Elver, wrapping up an 11-day visit to Zimbabwe,\u00a0said the country was on the brink of man-made starvation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8220;Why I say man-made? \u2026 Something happened. Not from the nature but from mismanagement, political and conflictual issues that bring people to starvation,\u201d she said. \u201cIt comes from a dysfunctional system. Yes, drought is not man-made, but if there is good management, it is possible to survive even during the drought periods, which neighboring countries did. Zimbabwe used to do it historically, in earlier periods.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Elver called on the Harare government to increase food production to avoid shocks from the shrinking economy and recurring drought. She warned that food insecurity and land mismanagement were increasing the risk of civil unrest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Mthuli\u00a0Ncube, Zimbabwe&#8217;s finance minister, said the government was working to address the threat from food insecurity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8220;Given the drought, we need to climate-proof our agriculture, so investment in infrastructure for evacuation of water from dams is absolutely critical,\u201d Ncube said. \u201cThat&#8217;s why in the [2020] budget you find this large allocation for agriculture around the infrastructure investment. Because, without this irrigation, then we are exposed to climate change. And we need to deal with that.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Meanwhile, what once was the breadbasket of Africa has become dependent on food aid, and the most vulnerable in Zimbabwe \u2014 like orphans whom\u00a0Chiwashira\u00a0feeds \u2014 are left guessing when they will get their next meal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.voanews.com\/africa\/zimbabwe-brink-man-made-starvation-un-expert-says\">Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was once referred to \u201cAfrica\u2019s breadbasket\u201d. Now ninety percent of children aged 6 months to 2 years are no longer fed the minimum acceptable diet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198790"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198825,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198790\/revisions\/198825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}