Food Crisis Continues; $10 Million from UN WFP
MercyCorps in Tajikistan had somber news on Aug. 11 about the food crisis in Tajikistan:
more than 60 percent of households are down to only one warm meal a day. An extreme winter damaged harvests and neighboring Kazakhstan has suspended wheat exports — shutting off Tajikistan’s primary supply of grain.
Vadim has written about the crisis before, but the percentages are still striking. In response to this rise in food prices across the world, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is seeking increased donations and distributing them to those countries in the worst immediate need. In a statement released to lay out its 214 million USD relief package for 16 world “hunger hot spots”, WFP put the Tajikistan crisis in stark numbers again:
Prices of bread and vegetable oil in Tajikistan have more than doubled since August 2007, while the prices of most other basic foods have increased by more than 50 percent.
The aid is intended to reach 1 million people in Tajikistan with an allocation of $10 million in this “cash package” roll out. 10 million USD is the same amount designated for Yemen, Liberia, and Guinea; surpassed only by $20 million to Pakistan among the 16 hot spots.
Finally, news reports of the aid include a less-than-subtle reference to the strategic relevance implicit for the West and nations heavily involved in the region, coincidentally also the most of the main donors backing WFP. RFE/RL and others carried this line from Reuters:
Tajikistan’s stability is key to the West as it tries to secure law and order in neihgbouring Afghanistan.
It would be refreshing to hear of a conscious and concerted effort to address underlying threats to stability when faced with an ever-worsening border region. I do not doubt that WFP believes they are promoting some level of more lasting stability with their programs. However, I doubt the wider “West” sees the aid as more than a temporary fix to famine from one year to the next.
on August 19th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
80% of the Tajik population is rural, although a lot (most?) of the rural men have migrated to other CIS countries for cash work. The villages could produce a lot more food for themselves if the government did not insist that most of the irrigatedland be given to producing cotton, and then pay so little for it that the most valuable thing the farm workers receive is the right to collect the stalks for fuel. Unfortunately, the Tajik elite controls and benefits from the cotton business, so they have no interest in changing things. (The president has said it’s good the country folk are poor, since they’re easier to control). The donors are enabling this bad policy since the government expects to be given handouts, but on the other hand it’s not obvious what else the international community can or should do.