Angolan food rations halved

By Zoe Eisenstein
Luanda, Angola

The UN's food agency has reduced by half the amount of food being distributed to nearly two million people in Angola this month.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says it had no choice but to cut down the amount of food being provided to each beneficiary because there was a delay in the arrival of food shipments.

Millions of Angolans need food aid

The country is still frail, as it continues picking up the pieces after a 27-year civil war that ended just 18 months ago.

Millions of people were displaced or fled the country because of the devastating conflict.

Some 3.8 million of those are now said to have returned to their areas of origin, which in some cases means moving back to places they have not seen for decades.

These people are still vulnerable and the communities they are returning to are - more often than not - poverty stricken.

Many of these returnees have been relying on the WFP food rations to give them some breathing space while they put their lives back together and try to find some kind of sustainable footing.

Donor fatigue

The agricultural season is in full swing, and WFP's food rations go to farmers while they plant their crops and work the land ahead of the next harvest in April.

They are among the vast majority of the 2.2 million people WFP is feeding this month who will have seen their rations halved, although around 100,000 of the most vulnerable - people like pregnant women and orphans - have received their usual aid packages.

But the problem is likely to continue beyond October - WFP says rations for November and December will have to be reduced too, if they do not come up with another solution quickly.

While several UN agencies and NGOs in Angola complain of donor fatigue and lack of funds, WFP has been quick to point out that this time around, resources are not the issue.

The problem, it says, is down to the companies who transport the food from their countries of origin to Angola - and a top-level investigation is already under way to identify the reasons for the delay in the arrival of these shipments and those responsible.