Why is southern Africa hungry?
A Christian Aid policy briefing Kato Lambrechts and Gweneth Barry March 2003 Executive summary An estimated 16 million people have been affected by food shortages across southern Africa. In 2001 and 2002 many faced months of scarcity and a large-scale disaster was only averted by the relief efforts of governments, international agencies and local nongovernmental organisations. The situation remains critical in Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique, where harvests have failed again and around six and a half million people are still in need. There are also huge needs in Angola after 27 years of civil war. Drought, floods, and even hailstorms hit southern Africa in 2001 and 2002, destroying crops and triggering massive food shortages across the region. Only ten years before, southern African countries had experienced one of the worst droughts in living memory, destroying far more crops. But in contrast to today’s crisis, with its millions of droughtstricken families, no one was reported to hav
