CARE Receives $500,000 Grant for Africa Emergency

CARE
Friday, 3 May 2002

Donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help feed millions in Malawi

CARE, a leading international organization fighting poverty, today announced receipt of a $500,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide emergency food aid for more than 2 million people – many of them children – who are going hungry in the southern African country of Malawi. The money is part of a $1 million grant from the foundation being shared equally between CARE and the international aid organization Save the Children.

Malawi and the Southern Africa region are facing their worst food shortages in nearly a decade. The scarcity of food is due to a series of related problems: a lack of rain, a depleted supply of strategic grain reserves, low production levels and higher prices for maize and fertilizer. The high incidence of HIV/AIDS in most of the region and a recent outbreak of cholera in Malawi have contributed to the crisis. Meteorologists forecast the region will face a drought again next year. The president of Malawi declared a "state of disaster" on February 27 this year as a result of the food situation, citing more than 70 percent of the population is being affected. Many people are eating unripened, "green maize" because of hunger.

"Hunger is setting in early and people are dying," says Nick Osborne, CARE country director in Malawi. "June and July are usually the best time of the year, when people have food. They plant again in November. With hunger setting in early, people are weaker and will be less prepared to start working in the fields for next year's harvest. Over the long term, this is going to become an even bigger crisis."

CARE has a long-standing presence in Malawi and has broadened its programs in response to the increasingly short supply of food. CARE has expanded its agricultural activities and is distributing extra cuttings of cassava, a fast growing staple food, for farmers to plant. Together, CARE and Save the Children will begin a house-to-house survey in four districts of Malawi on May 15 to determine to what degree families are suffering from malnutrition. The survey also will serve to check the status of their food supplies. CARE also belongs to a network that has called for the government to distribute free maize to people most vulnerable to hunger, including children, and to establish a plan to keep this disaster from recurring. This network is distributing pamphlets in local languages to 90,000 farmers with information about what people can do to support members of their communities. In addition, CARE is preparing a long-term emergency response.

For more information, or to contact CARE, see their website at: www.care.org