Double trouble: food and aid
By Navin Singh Khadka
Soaring food prices may have caused crisis in all least developed countries alike but Nepal appears to be worse off: it has not even been able to take international help on offer.
In the wake of the rising food prices globally, the United Nations is providing an additional 1.2 billion dollars of food aid for 60 nations hardest hit by the crisis.
An equal amount of support was announced by the World Bank to what it called was for addressing immediate needs.
At a recent UN summit in Rome, the Food and Agriculture Organisation announced that the Islamic Development Bank would give 1.5 billion dollars in aid to farmers in the poorest countries.
Nepal has been identified as one of the hardest hit countries and yet it has not been able to utilise what has already been on offer – let alone rummaging the entire aid vessel.
Political deadlock has left the administration bewildered, waiting and watching for a new government.
That has meant neither there has been any government show of action nor international aid in response to the crisis is reaching people.
Some of the major foreign donors have said they are finding it difficult to help Nepal cope with soaring food prices because of the delay in government formation.
They say they have plans to help those hit by the food crisis but have not been able to implement them in absence of what they say is government's coordination.
"One of the key concern I have is finding partners in the government, try to develop some sort of coordinated action because this is a complicated issue; it's not just about providing emergency food relief to people," says Richard Regan, chief of World Food Program Nepal office.
"It's about dealing with questions around income transfers, subsidising food products, long term agricultural investment and these require concerted efforts on part of the people who are in the government and they are unfortunately not in place yet."
Another major donor official expressed similar frustration, not wanting to be named.
Bureaucrats have hinted there is very little they can do under present circumstances. Said Supplies Ministry secretary Purushottam Ojha, "We have held preliminary talks with foreign organisations like the World Bank, but the political transition has been a set back. We are still trying."
Rising food costs have reached a 30-year high causing riots in several countries and pushing tens of millions of people into hunger worldwide.
With costs rising 40 percent, said a recent FAO report, the most economically vulnerable countries will bear the biggest burden.
Nepal has already become a testimony to that. The WFP Nepal office has recorded that the number of poor people living with less than a dollar a day has doubled after the food crisis.
"Before the crisis there were four million people living with less than a dollar a day," says Regan. "Now the figure has gone up to eight million because people need to spend 80 percent of their income on food."
Some experts believe there are ways if donors have the will.
"There are mechanisms both in the officialdom and the non government sector," says Bholaman Singh Basnet, chief scientist at the National Agricultural Research Council. "Donors don't need to wait for the new government just as farmers sowing rice saplings don't."
It remains to be seen if international aid agencies working on their plans would drive the track two lane.
The World Bank has completed the rapid needs assessment for more than 25 countries and is continuing with 15 others.
An official with the bank's Kathmandu office said Nepal is in the list and that the country could get the aid within three to six months.
By then the results of the Rome summit achievements would be due. Rich participant countries are working on a long list of promises to help finance research into new seeds, build irrigation canals and spread fertilisers among small farmers.
Meanwhile, UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon has been stressing on a 50 percent increase in food production by 2030 and for which he has been seeking between 15 and 20 billion dollars.
Given that international assistance on agriculture has halved between 1980 and 2005, Ban's target may be a far cry.
For now even if he achieves small success, hard-hit Nepalese will still have a big question: Will fraction of the assistance and other aids trickle down to them?
If the present culprit – political instability -- is there to stay, they probably already have the answer.
(The article is a translation of a BBC Nepali Service report broadcast on 13 June, 2008)
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