Angola Slow on Drought Response as People Die of Hunger By Louise Redvers …/…. Francisco Filomeno Vieira Lopes, secretary general of Bloco Democrático, a small party that has no seats in parliament but is vocal on social issues, told IPS that the government was too preoccupied with attacking those who were trying to publicise the problem, rather than actually helping those in need. He said sounder food security policies were required and lamented the lack of available data and apparent monitoring of previous schemes that could help inform future decisions. Alcides Sakala, a senior member of União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), the country’s second-largest party, told IPS: “Not enough is done to help these rural families in general. More needs to be done to diversify the economy so people are not living in these precarious situations in the first place.” The growing alarm over the devastating impact of the drought in the south of the country sits uncomfortably with Angola’s recent award from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. (FAO). Agriculture Minister Afonso Pedro Canga travelled to FAO headquarters in Rome earlier this month to collect the award for Angola meeting the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition. While accepting that progress had been made since the end of Angola’s long civil war, which began in 1975 and continued at intervals until 2002, Father Pio said he felt the timing of the award – and the announcement that Angola would be donating 10 million dollars to the FAO’s Africa Solidarity Trust Fund to promote food security – sent the wrong message. “People here are starving and they are giving all this money to the FAO. This is very upsetting,” he said, also referring to a front page headline of the state-owned newspaper about the FAO prize that boldly claimed, “Angola beats poverty”. He said: “People assume that Angola is a rich country and that it is providing for its people, but it is not, it is quite the opposite, and despite all the money here, many people are suffering. “There are two narratives in Angola: what the government tells you and what is really happening – it is very sad.” UNICEF, which has been working with the government on its response strategy, declined to be interviewed for this report and was unable to give updates on its feeding programme or estimates of how many children were now at risk from malnutrition. ipsnews.net/2013/06/angola-slow-on-drought-response-as-people-die-of-hunger/
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 02:19:50 +0000
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