MEDIA RELEASE
Released By:
Downer
Australia will provide a further $3.5 million to help the World Food Programme (WFP) feed about three million people in Zimbabwe.
This funding, through the Government's Australian Fund for Zimbabwe, will support food distribution to people most in need, such as HIV/AIDS orphans and the chronically ill, and to households in areas of acute food shortages.
Many Zimbabweans have fled the country as the policies of the Mugabe regime have ravaged food production and made living conditions increasingly difficult. While estimates vary, it is likely that at least three million people have left since the prolonged economic crisis started in the late 1990s.
Of the remaining population, a growing number face severe deprivation, with up to 80 per cent of the country's 12 million people now living below the poverty line. Along with drought in some areas, hyper-inflation has seen a sharp rise in grain prices. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans are already starting to run out of food. The need for further humanitarian assistance is urgent.
Australia's funding will also help enhance WFP's monitoring and reporting of food distribution programs. The WFP provides food aid strictly according to need, without regard to political or other affiliation. In contrast, the Mugabe regime has used food distribution through government-controlled channels for political purposes.
Australia provided $6 million to the Australian Fund for Zimbabwe in 2006-07, for humanitarian assistance and to support civil society organisations that promote democracy and human rights. The Government expects to contribute double this amount in 2007-08.
Though the Australian Government has suspended development cooperation with the regime of Robert Mugabe, we recognise the desperate need of ordinary Zimbabweans and will continue to provide humanitarian relief in the face of President Mugabe's scandalous economic failures.
Media contacts:
Malcolm Cole (Minister's Office) 02 6277 7500
AusAID Public Affairs 0417 680 590