Conflicts, HIV, climate change behind Africa's food crises: aid agency

Africa's conflicts, climate change and diseases were main reasons of the continent's food crises, a leading aid agency Oxfam International said in a new report published in Nairobi on Monday.

According to Oxfam, the current situation in Sudan's troubled region of Darfur where 3.4 million people were relying on food aid, was a classic example of the devastating humanitarian emergency that conflicts created.

The report said HIV/AIDS pandemic was expending a terrifying toll on one of Africa's key resources for food production --- people. "By 2020 a fifth of the agricultural workforce in Southern African countries will have been claimed by AIDS," said Oxfam in a report entitled Causing Hunger: an Overview of the Food Crisis in Africa.

The British charity said climate change was also a wreaking havoc affecting the livelihood of small landholders and nomadic pastoralists in Africa.

Researchers predicted that about more than 60 million Africans would be at risk of hunger by the year of 2080 because of a rise in global temperature, it said.

"It will cost the world far less to make a major investment now in a tackling the root causes of hunger than continuing the current cycle of too little, too late that has been the reality of famine relief in Africa for nearly half a century," Oxfam Director Barbara Stocking said.

The aid agency urged donor governments, particularly the United States, to re-examine their food aid policy, untie their contributions, and look to increase the proportion of locally purchased food. "They must also ensure interventions to work more to support livelihood of those most at risk," it said in the 39- page report published in Nairobi.

The report also called on African governments to adhere to the commitments made at the 2003 African Union summit for national governments to increase agricultural spending to 10 percent of their budgets.

"Governments should also establish long-term social protection schemes for people affected by chronic food insecurity and make available resources for a predictable need," the report said.

Source: Xinhua