US embassy cable - 03HARARE783

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 000783 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR J. FRAZER 
LONDON FOR C. GURNEY 
PARIS FOR C. NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR T. PFLAUMER 
USAID/W FOR DCHA/OFDA FOR HAJJAR, KHANDAGLE AND MARX, 
DCHA/FFP FOR LANDIS, BRAUSE, SKORIC AND PETERSEN, 
AFR/SA FOR POE AND COPSON, AFR/SD FOR ISALROW AND WHELAN 
PRETORIA FOR FFP DISKIN AND OFDA BRYAN 
NAIROBI FOR DCHA/OFDA/ARO FOR RILEY, MYER AND SMITH, 
REDSO/ESA/FFP FOR SENYKORR 
ROME PLEASE PASS TO FODAG 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, EAID, ZI 
SUBJECT: SLIGHT IMPROVEMENT IN FOOD SECURITY 
 
REF: HARARE 423 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  A monthly food monitoring report issued by the National 
NGO Food Security Network (FOSENET) suggests a slight 
improvement in the food security situation across the country 
since January due to wider distribution of relief food and 
early harvests.  Despite these gains in rural areas, the 
urban areas experienced a deterioration in food availability 
because of the absence of urban feeding programs and the 
scarcity and politicized distribution of Grain Marketing 
Board (GMB) grain.  Political bias in GMB grain distribution 
was a problem for roughly half the reporting districts but 
was not a barrier to receiving relief food.  Information from 
the partially functioning UN Relief Information and 
Verification Office and an embassy database on incidents of 
politicized food distributions suggests that most food 
manipulations are of GMB food.  Urban areas and Matabeleland 
were areas most affected by these biased food distributions. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
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SLIGHT IMPROVEMENT IN FOOD SITUATION 
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2.  A monthly food monitoring report issued by the National 
NGO Food Security Network (FOSENET) suggests a slight 
improvement in the food security situation in half the rural 
districts due to early harvest yields and successful WFP and 
C-SAFE food aid distributions.  Urban areas have 
deteriorating food security situations.  Exclusion from 
beneficiary lists, transportation problems, policy gaps on 
food supply for urban areas, and civil servants who cannot 
get GMB food were the main obstacles to food access. 
 
3. FOSENET is a network of 24 Zimbabwean NGOs, organized in 
March 2002 to monitor food needs, availability, and access 
through NGOs based within districts and through community 
based monitors.  This is FOSENET,s sixth report and covers 
February and March 2003.  It is based upon 132 and 147 
reports from 53 and 58 districts for February and March, 
respectively.  The number of districts is more than in 
December/January. 
 
4.  Conclusions from the report are as follows: 
 
--By March, 31 districts, or 53 percent of responding 
districts, reported an improved situation compared to more 
than 60 percent of reporting districts reporting a 
deteriorating food security situation in November, December, 
and January. 
 
--Vulnerability stayed about the same with 49 percent of 
districts reporting everyone in need of food.  In January it 
was 47 percent. 
 
--GMB deliveries continued to be erratic but the average 
volume of deliveries per ward increased to 7.3 tons up from 
1.8 tons in January.  Matabeleland and Mashonaland East had 
increased deliveries.  Hurungwe in Mashonaland West continued 
to report wards that have received no GMB food since October. 
 Umguza in Matabeleland North received no food since January, 
while Gwanda in Matabeleland South and Chikomba in 
Mashonaland East received none since November 2002. 
 
-- Half the districts reported political bias in favor of 
ZANU-PF party members in GMB grain access.  The cost of GMB 
sales was still a barrier to access with the upper price 
range for a 10-kg bag of corn meal being Z$300, 158 percent 
above the controlled price. 
 
--Commercially supplied food was still scarce and expensive. 
In 16 districts, workers for commercial suppliers, people 
with political access, uniformed forces, youth (Green 
Bombers), and people with business ties were granted access 
to limited market supplies. 
 
-- The informal market prices reached Z$8000 for a 10-kg bag 
of corn meal in some areas of the Midlands--almost 70 times 
the controlled price.  The profit margin for GMB corn sold on 
the informal market widened to Z$4200 from Z$2800 in January. 
 
--Relief supplies improved in Mashonaland East and West and 
in some parts of Manicaland but the eight urban districts 
received no relief supplies.  In two districts, Mhondoro in 
Mashonaland West and Goromonzi in Mashonaland East, NGO 
partners reportedly stopped food distributions because of 
political interference. 
 
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UN FOOD MONITORING AT STANDSTILL 
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5. The UN Relief and Recovery Unit's (RRU), Relief and 
Information Verification Office (RIVO) has made little 
progress since it opened the Mutare monitoring site in 
eastern Zimbabwe in February.  Of the six UN volunteer field 
monitors (UNV) George Olesh, head of RIVO, hopes to hire, 
three are in Zimbabwe.  The other three have not been hired 
because of a glitch within the UNDP system whereby the office 
in Brussels has not wired the money to the account in New 
York. The UNV main hiring office in Bonn, Germany will not 
process further hiring requests until this money appears in 
their New York account. (See Reftel).  In addition to 
staffing shortfalls, RIVO is still waiting for GOZ support 
and concurrence for the office's activities. 
 
6. Olesh told PolOff that the ECHO representative in Zimbabwe 
asked when RIVO would begin validation and complained that 
the office was moving too slowly. Olesh told PolOff that the 
partners will most likely need to reconvene to redefine their 
expectations from RIVO. (COMMENT. Admittedly, the RIVO has 
been slow in setting up operations but it is not unexpected. 
The UN agencies cannot proceed without government 
concurrence, as other NGOs, with short-term interests, may be 
able to do.  The UN agencies, in particular UNDP, have 
long-term interests at stake and a favorable relationship 
with the GOZ is necessary for long-term program success. END 
COMMENT.) 
 
7. Olesh told PolOff that during the March 17 GOZ/Donor 
meeting, the Swedish Ambassador asked Ministry of Social 
Welfare representatives if there would be a RIVO.  The 
government officials replied that they would not support 
district level verification units as described in the 
proposal.  Their preference is to have a centrally located 
office and then deploy teams comprised of NGO and GOZ 
representatives.  Olesh told us that such an arrangement 
would defeat the purpose of the RIVO because the process 
would be political and the reports would be edited down to 
nothing. 
 
8. In spite of these setbacks, Olesh is still relatively 
optimistic that he will be able to open another office within 
the next few months.  He identified Gwanda in Matabeleland 
South, which was declared a disaster area in March, as an 
option.  He said since Matabeleland South has no active 
governor, the provincial administrator must get a consensus 
of all district administrators before RIVO activities can 
proceed.  If the administrators make no decision by May 5, 
Olesh said RIVO would try to open an office in Gweru, where 
the governor is willing to host and support the effort. 
Olesh also identified Muzarabani and Marondera in Mashonaland 
Central as possible locations, banking on lingering district 
and provincial level goodwill in response to UN relief 
efforts during the Muzarabani floods in February. 
 
9. Olesh told us that most of the complaints UNDP receives 
about food distributions have to do with beneficiary 
registrations and rates of expansions and have nothing to do 
with politicization of food distributions.  Most of the 
complaints about politicized food come from Harare and 
Bulawayo and involve access to GMB food. 
 
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LITTLE POLITICAL BIAS IN NGO FOOD ACCESS 
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10. PolOff has been keeping a database of incidents of food 
distribution along political lines since October 2002. 
Database entries are anecdotal reports by US Embassy 
employees and friends of Embassy employees, press reports, 
and individual NGO reports.  The results of the database 
suggest little in the way of political interference in 
international relief food distributions but a fair amount of 
interference in GMB food distributions.  Most reports of 
political interference came from Matabeleland. 
 
11. In its most recent report, FOSENET reported sites in the 
following districts as having difficulty with food access due 
to political bias in food distribution: Lupane and Bubi in 
Matabeleland North; Chimanimani and Mutare rural in 
Manicaland; and Chinhoyi urban in Mashonaland West. 
 
12. On April 1, the World Food Program issued a report of 
suspensions and delays of WFP food distributions in 2003.  In 
half of the investigated incidents, which include the Insiza 
incident reported in reftel, WFP suspected a political 
motive.  Only in Insiza are food distributions still 
suspended.  The NGOs involved in these isolated incidents are 
ORAP in Insiza, World Vision in Murehwa and Wedza, and 
Christian Care in Buhera. 
 
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COMMENT 
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13. The utility of the RIVO is waning fast.  The Ministry of 
Social Welfare's refusal to cooperate or endorse the effort 
at the GOZ/donor meeting essentially eliminates any hopes the 
donor community may have had to monitor GMB food.  Since 
there are few allegations of politicized food distributions 
among relief agencies, the RIVO will have limited usefulness. 
 Fortunately, food access has steadily improved since the 
beginning of the year and fewer rural districts have to 
contend with the biases of the GMB. END COMMENT. 
SULLIVAN