Posted on 2-7-2003
Iraq:
Everyone Now Needs Food Aid
By Ricardo Grassi, Inter Press Service, 30 June 2003
The war in Iraq has made the entire population of 27
million dependent on food aid, leaders of aid programs say.
Before the war that the U.S. and Britain launched March
20 to remove the Saddam Hussein regime, 60 percent of the population
had depended entirely on food aid.
Today, the lives of 100 percent of the Iraqi population,
27 million people, depend on the provision of monthly food rations,UNICEF
chief representative in Iraq Carel de Roy told IPS in a phone
interview.
The United Nations WFP (World Food Program) chief representative
in Baghdad Torben Due says the crisis is unprecedented. To avoid
a food crisis in the country we have initiated the largest emergency
operation in the 40 years history of the WFP,he told IPS in
an interview on email from Baghdad.
The situation was bad enough before the war. A WFP survey
of the southern and central provinces then showed not only that
60 percent of the population depends on food aid but that one
in five Iraqis were living in chronic poverty. The results of
the survey were announced last week.
Chronic poverty was defined by WFP as conditions in which
an individual or a family cannot meet essential needs of food,
water, clothing, shelter, health and basic education over a
long period.
The southern and central regions of Iraq covered by the
WFP survey are home to 22.3 million Iraqis. But the situation
was little better in the north.
A report by the international charity 'Save the Children'
was quoted in the WFP survey as saying that most people in the
north depended on free food rations through the public distribution
system. Most households are extremely vulnerable to external
shocks - they have limited (if any) capacity to expand to other
coping strategies and economic activities,the report was quoted
as saying.
The WFP now says that two months of instability and war
have most likely made their ability to cope with an already
deteriorating situation much worse.Across the country, it says,
vulnerability to poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition have
most likely risen over the past two months.
The war halted income-generating activities for many
Iraqis, the WFP report says, as more pressing concerns such
as personal safety and survival took precedence.The report points
out that many shops and private sector businesses remain shut,
and that many government employees have not been paid for the
past few months.
The 1980-88 war with Iran, the two Gulf wars and the
economic sanctions between them, and failing economic policies
have impoverished a majority of the Iraqi people and reduced
them to relying heavily on free food handouts,says Due.
Carol de Roy says the sanctions empowered Saddam's regime,
and weakened the population. There is no question about it,de
Roy says. The food issue is clear evidence.
The setbacks of the nineties came after considerable
progress. A survey conducted by the University of Harvard in
1991 after the first Gulf War noted that the percentage of people
with access to safe drinking water had risen from 66 per cent
in 1975 to 87 percent by 1987. By that year, 93 percent of the
population was covered by free health services.
The sanctions were eased in the late nineties to allow
Iraq to buy food against oil exports. Now again in the short
and medium term the food needs will have to be covered through
import financed by revenues from the oil export,Due says. In
the long term, Iraq has an important agricultural potential
that could be activated though massive investments in the agricultural
sector.
Long term solutions need to be based ona thorough analysis
that takes into consideration the current high level of dependency
on food rations,Due says. A solid knowledge base covering poverty,
malnutrition, food security, social welfare and other related
issues will be needed to have an informed dialogue on the best
policies to follow.
The new Collegial Provisional Authority (CPA, headed
by U.S.) that is responsible for administrative matters, he
says, is receptive to the points of view of WFP.
Food assistance to the Iraqi population is assured for
the next five months. The WFP has received almost 500 million
dollars in donation for the food aid Program The U.S. and Britain,
which led the invasion of Iraq are the largest food donors,
Due says.
But disbursement is not easy. The security situation
is the most serious concern, as it makes it difficult to operate
in some areas of the country,he says. The U.S. and British forces
controlling Iraq are under increasing attack from Iraqi opposition
forces.
Food supplies are being hampered also by poor communication.
The offices of the Ministry of Trade were destroyed in the war,
and this has restricted communications between Baghdad and the
rest of Iraq, Due says
|