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STORY: WFP / ZIMBABWE COVID-19 RESPONSE
TRT: 02:34
SOURCE: WFP
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WFP ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /SHONA /NATS
DATELINE: 3, 6 APRIL 2020, SHAMVU DISTRICT / HARARE, ZIMBABWE
3 APRIL 2020, SHAMVU DISTRICT, ZIMBABWE
1.Various shots, health workers explain safety measures to beneficiaries
6 APRIL 2020, HARARE, ZIMBABWE
2.SOUNDBITE (English) Eddie Rowe, WFP Zimbabwe Country Director:
"We had to suspend distribution for a week, to ensure that we put in place proper distribution systems as well as personal protective equipment and hygiene items to our staff and our cooperating partners. And to ensure that food is distributed in a very safe and secure manner that would mitigate the spread of coronavirus in Zimbabwe."
3 APRIL 2020, SHAMVU DISTRICT, ZIMBABWE
3.Wide shot, women walking in field carrying bags and pots
4. Pan right, women walking
5.Med shot, WFP staff scans an ID from a distance
6.Close up, Rebecca washing hands before entering food distribution area
7.Pan left, Rebecca walking to distribution area
8.Wide shot, beneficiaries inside distribution area
9.Various shots, Rebecca sifting beans
10.Wide shot, Rebecca taking her load and leaving
11.SOUNDBITE (Shona) Rebecca Kapaira, single mother of five:
"Because of the current food situation, combined with corona virus, it will be difficult to get it (food). All boarders are closed, food transportation will be affected. It’s now a big challenge for the food to reach every individual, lack of access to food means more hunger to our families."
12.Wide shot, Rebecca walking away with her load
13.Wide shot, Rebecca cooking
14.Med shot, Rebecca’s two children eating
United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) urgently needs USD 130 million to sustain through August an emergency operation to prevent millions of the Zimbabwe’s most vulnerable people plunging deeper into hunger.
Zimbabwe was already going through a severe climate - and recession- induced hunger crisis when the COVID-19 started to take hold.
A recent nationwide assessment – the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – shows that the number of acutely food insecure Zimbabweans has risen to 4.3 million, from 3.8 million at the end of last year.
WFP assistance in recent months has helped ease hunger in six of nine districts classified late last year as suffering “emergency” food insecurity (IPC 4), allowing them to be downgraded to the less severe “crisis” level (IPC 3). However, 56 of the country’s 60 districts are now categorized as experiencing “crisis” hunger.
The agency is planning to assist 4.1 million people in April, although insufficient funding has prevented it achieving the same monthly target since the turn of the year. In March, it reached 3.7 million of the most vulnerable Zimbabweans.
The total number of food insecure people stands at 7.7 million, more than half the population of Zimbabwe. The USD 130 million being urgently sought by WFP is part of a total food assistance sector requirement of USD 472 million through December.
Cereal production in 2019 was half that of 2018, and less than half the national requirement. Experts predict that the upcoming 2020 harvest will be even poorer. Most of Zimbabwe’s food is produced by subsistence farmers dependent on a single, increasingly unreliable rainy season.
With unprecedented hyperinflation having pushed the prices of staples beyond the means of most Zimbabweans, increasingly desperate families are eating less, selling off precious belongings and going into debt.
COVID-19 threatens to exacerbate Zimbabwe’s dire economic and hunger crises, drastically affecting the lives of people in both urban and rural areas. WFP has a critical role to play by sustaining its scaled-up food assistance programme – and must be able to deliver at full capacity – while supporting the country’s response to the pandemic.
It is pre-positioning three months of food and cash assistance, rolling out new risk-control measures at distributions – increasing their number to prevent overcrowding, initiating handwashing and monitoring social distancing – and launching a communications campaign to convey essential health and safety information.
