By Sikhulile Dlamini
MBABANE – In an effort to tackle the imminent shortage of food among Emaswati, the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office (DPMO) and the United Nations (UN) Eswatini are now calling upon all stakeholders to come together and find a way of mitigating the imminent food insecurity.
The reaction by these organisation has been sparked by the Vulnerability Assessment Committee (VAC) report, which indicates that a total of 245 500 vulnerable people are in need of food aid from. According to the report, the people would be in need of the food aid from June 2024 to September 2024.
To amend this, UN Resident Coordinator in Eswatini George Wachira and UNICEF Country Representative Amina Mohammed, together with the Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Thulisile Dladla have taken an initiative to deliberate on the way forward.
DPMO Communications Officer Zanele Dlamini highlighted that the discussions included the need to host multistakeholder forum which would discuss issues of climate change and food security with affected stakeholders. These, according to Dlamini, include the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labour and Social Security, National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) and other affected stakeholders. It will also deliberate on strategies on how best these issues can be addressed to save lives of the vulnerable groups such as orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs), elderly and disabled.
The VAC report states that the food insecurity is due to drought and other factors such as floods, storms, high prices of food and reduced income. It also highlights that the number is expected to increase to 303 700 people from October 2024 to March 2025. Thus, the country needs to import more cereals to meet the demand for food.
Findings from the report also indicates that Maize Production stands at 74 946 MT (12 percent less than 2022/23), groundnut production decreased by 63.32 percent (from 401.26 MT in 2022/23 to 147.19 MT in 2023/24) and sweet potato production experienced a decrease of 22.29 percent.
The VAC report is aimed at providing updates on the status of livelihoods and vulnerability for both rural and urban households, generating information on the nutrition status and health situation of households.
