In 1991/92, drought caused massive crop failure, threatening 18 million people in 10 southern African countries with famine. Because of a similar reduced maize crop after the 2001/02 crop cycle, several early warning systems predicted an impending food crisis that would run through the beginning of the following harvest in April 2003. (App. II provides a timeline of the crisis period, and app. III provides information on early warning systems.) Regional and national assessments of the crisis conducted by WFP, FAO, and others estimated that 15.3 million people in the region were at risk of starvation. (Fig. 1 shows the population at risk of famine in each of the six affected countries.) In July 2002, WFP initiated the Southern Africa Crisis Response Emergency Operation (EMOP) for providing food aid to the six countries on a regional basis. Prior to this consolidation, WFP had been delivering food to the individual country emergency operating programs. WFP’s objectives in the southern Africa food crisis were to prevent severe food shortages, safeguard the nutritional well-being of vulnerable segments of the population, preserve human assets, and prevent migration out of affected areas. As the major food aid donor in the southern Africa crisis, the U.S. government has a significant role in the relief effort. Through USAID’s Food for Peace Office and its Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and USDA, the U.S. government has worked to support the EMOP and address the crisis. In February 2002, in an effort to avert famine, the United States began authorizing food aid shipments to the region. As of March 18, 2003, the U.S. government had provided approximately $275 million in food aid and $13 million for bilateral nonfood-related assistance such as agriculture, health, shelter, and sanitation. (See app. IV for additional information on the U.S. contributions.) WFP, the United States, and other countries partner with nongovernmental organizations to distribute food aid at the regional and village level. In addition, many of these organizations also provide nonfood emergency assistance and long-term development aid. Much of the population in each of the affected countries works in the agricultural sector. The percentage of labor force engaged in agriculture ranges from 66 percent in Zimbabwe to 86 percent in Lesotho and Malawi. Many of these farmers rely on maize (corn) as the primary staple crop. Unlike root crops such as cassava and sweet potatoes—which are common but less popular staples in the region—maize is relatively fragile, requiring more fertilizer and differing amounts of water during the growing season. The immediate factor contributing to the food crisis was the erratic weather patterns that disrupted the normal growing cycle, causing maize production in southern Africa to drop from a 5-year average of about 7.3 million MT to about 5.2 million MT in 2002. The dramatic reduction in available maize can also be linked to a weak agricultural sector and government actions, such as Malawi’s decision to sell off its strategic grain reserve and Zimbabwe’s fast-tracked land reform. In addition, much of the region’s population had limited access to food because of widespread poverty. The HIV/AIDS epidemic further exacerbated the population’s access to basic commodities by decreasing household food production and income and increasing consumption requirements. Erratic weather patterns between December 2001 and May 2002 reduced the harvests in five of the six affected countries, except Mozambique, when compared with 5-year averages. Drought-like conditions gripped parts of Malawi, southern Mozambique, Swaziland, southern Zambia, and Zimbabwe in the middle of the growing season (see app. II for timeline). This water deficit at a crucial point in the growing season severely stressed crops and caused many hectares to wilt. In addition, parts of Zambia suffered high rainfall mid-season, flooding the still-growing crops. Similarly, in Malawi, after the mid-season dry spells wilted some crops, the country received heavy rains that hampered the harvesting and drying of what crops remained, and in some cases, caused them to rot. Lesotho also experienced prolonged rains late in the season as well as an additional late- season frost that damaged crops across large parts of the country and drastically reduced production. Regional food supplies have been limited due to poor cereal harvests in five out of the six affected countries. (See table 1.) Mozambique was the one exception: Its 2001/02 cereal harvest was actually above average. However, due to transportation constraints, Mozambique’s production surpluses could not be supplied to the southern part of the country where cereal harvests were lower. In addition to poor weather conditions, weaknesses in the agricultural sector contributed to a poor harvest. According to IFAD, these weaknesses included the following: Declining soil fertility reduced crop yields. In Lesotho, average maize and sorghum yields have declined by more than 60 percent since the mid-1970s. According to FAO, declining soil fertility is a primary cause of this trend and is leading to a crop production catastrophe in that country. Restricted access to agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilizer limited harvests. In Zambia, important inputs such as seeds and fertilizer were not available until December 2001 or January 2002, resulting in late plantings. These crops were at a crucial stage of development when the rains ceased in early 2002, causing crop failure. Incomplete market development impaired farmers’ ability to sell crops. In Malawi, market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s eliminated price controls and removed government food grain monopolies. While these liberalizing reforms increased the availability of seeds and fertilizer, small farmers still lack access to credit. The food supply has been constrained further by certain government actions, the most damaging of which were the sale of grain reserves in Malawi and fast-tracked land reform in Zimbabwe. Between July 2000 and August 2001, the National Food Reserve Agency of Malawi sold the 167,000 MT of maize it had purchased and stored as food reserves for the country. Despite several audits, it is still uncertain where the proceeds of the sale went. While the sold reserves did not cause the Malawi food crisis, their absence jeopardized the population’s food security. Had the government retained 60,000 MT of maize in accordance with its own policy to ensure adequate food supplies or an equivalent amount of currency to purchase new stocks, it could have been used to help ease food shortages in the early stage of the crisis, when a considerable number of people are reported to have died, and to fill almost one-quarter of the country’s cereal gap while emergency response operations were ramping up. An investigation by Malawi’s National Audit Office in May 2002 concluded that the National Food Reserve Agency lost money in every area of handling maize because of poor financial management. Another investigation, conducted by Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau in mid-2002, found that poor management of the grain reserve allowed companies and individuals to take advantage of the maize shortage to increase prices beyond the reach of a large sector of the community. The mismanagement cost the Malawian government more than K 2.9 billion (about $40 million). After years of trying to redistribute the country’s arable land, the government of Zimbabwe fast-tracked its land reform and resettlement policy in 2000 with the aim of acquiring all commercial farms no later than August 8, 2002. The campaign was characterized by the forced expulsion of landowners and farm laborers. To date, there remain more than a million internally displaced farm laborers. While the government did acquire these farms, it did not maintain them to ensure continued productivity. As a result, the land seizure destabilized the country’s economy, leading to a 75 percent drop in commercial maize production over the past 2 years and turning Zimbabwe from a net exporter of grain to a net importer. Because Zimbabwe now cannot grow enough food to feed its own population, it has strained the cereal supply for the entire region. According to the State Department, the country’s gross domestic product fell by more than 20 percent and inflation soared to more than 269 percent between 1998 and 2002, coinciding with fast-tracked land reform. At the same time, unemployment rose by more than 25 percent as dismantling of commercial farms left many rural farm workers without a source of income and, therefore, a way to purchase food when their subsistence crops failed. In addition, government-imposed price controls on basic commodities have caused shortages of everything from bread, milk, sugar, and wheat flour to fuel and electricity. The six nations affected by the food crisis are generally low-income countries. The percentage of population subsisting on less than $1 per day range from 36 percent in Zimbabwe to 64 percent in Zambia. This widespread poverty and lack of productive assets (e.g., livestock and farm machinery) contribute to food insecurity in the region. In addition, the region is currently facing serious economic problems that further increase the population’s food insecurity. For example, in recent years, the dramatic collapse in the economy of Zimbabwe and a decline in the mining industry in South Africa and Zambia have removed sources of employment for many individuals in the region. The region’s food insecurity is associated with high rates of chronic malnutrition in the under-5 population—ranging from 30 percent in Swaziland to 59 percent in Zambia. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has strained already-diminished food supplies by decreasing affected households’ food production and increasing nutritional requirements. In addition, the epidemic limits households’ access to food by decreasing income and increasing household expenses. According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), adult HIV/AIDS infection rates in 2001 were approximately 31 percent for Lesotho, 15 percent for Malawi, 13 percent for Mozambique, 33 percent for Swaziland, 22 percent for Zambia, and 34 percent for Zimbabwe.