ReliefWeb

UK aid helping people in southern Madagascar to face food crisis due to severe droughts and failed rains.

ANTANANARIVO

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a contribution of £3 million (US$4.1 million, equivalent to 15 trillion Malagasy ariary) from the United Kingdom towards its assistance to people in the regions of Androy, Anosy and Atsimo Andrefana, in southern Madagascar. This funding from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) will support some of the 1.3 million people affected by the worst drought in a decade in the South of the country.

British Ambassador David Ashley said: “I am pleased that the UK is able to contribute further to the humanitarian response in the south of Madagascar, following our grant to UNICEF earlier in the year. Our new grant to WFP will enable 100,000 people to access sufficient food over a period of five months. The desperate situation in southern Madagascar only reinforces the importance of the world taking concerted action against climate change and in support of climate vulnerable countries at COP26 next month in Glasgow.”

The contribution through FCDO will enable WFP to support 100,000 people with cash-based assistance as part of the drought responses in the South of Madagascar. Each household will receive MGA 100,000 per month. “We are extremely grateful for the support of the United Kingdom, at this critical time, of WFP’s emergency response to support vulnerable people in southern Madagascar. Their food and nutritional situation remains alarming while we are only at the beginning of the lean season,” said WFP Representative in Madagascar, Pasqualina Disirio.

At least 1.3 million people need emergency food and nutrition assistance in southern Madagascar, the only place in the world right now where “famine-like conditions” have been driven by climate not conflict. An almost total disappearance of food sources has pushed people to desperate survival measures such as eating locusts, raw red cactus fruits or wild leaves and tubers.

For more information please contact:

Manohisoa Rasamiarisoa, British Embassy/Antananarivo,
Manohisoa.Rasamiarisoa@fcdo.gov.uk Tel. +261 33 33 330 56 Alice Rahmoun, WFP/Antananarivo,
Alice.rahmoun@wfp.org Tel. +32 23 633 57 Claudia Altorio, WFP/Johannesburg Claudia.Altorio@wfp.org Tel. +27 82 908 1448