KAMPALA, 23 December 2008 (IRIN) - Food insecurity in Uganda's drought-prone region of Karamoja will worsen in 2009, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.

The agency said the focus of the humanitarian community would be mainly on Karamoja because of its tenuous food situation, exacerbated by the widespread failure of the latest harvest, with yields about 30 percent of the expected output.

WFP said prospects for improved food security and nutrition were poor as the region was facing its third successive failed harvest. Karamoja has one main harvest season annually in August-September.

"We are currently catering for about 700,000 people, but this number is expected to go as high as 950,000," Stanlake Samkange, WFP country representative, told IRIN on 22 December.

"They will need food aid because many places in Karamoja did not harvest anything because of the worsening climatic conditions. Harvests have been around 30 percent while other areas have recorded even lower rates than that. WFP will soon launch an emergency operation to assist an estimated 900,000 people for approximately a year."

Karamoja, often referred to as Uganda's "wild west", remains the poorest and most marginalised part of the country. It is caught in a cycle of natural disasters, conflict and limited investment, which perpetuates underdevelopment and hunger.

Musa Ecweru, Minister for Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, told IRIN on 22 December: "The situation in Karamoja is bad, malnutrition is going up and mostly in children and the elderly. The crop failure is not the only problem of food insecurity in the region; a disease known as Peste des Petits Ruminants has also wiped out half the population of goats that always served as their buffer in situations of crop failure."

He said the government was planning an appeal to donors to help in the most affected areas of Karamoja, "but we have to wait until after the festive season".

He said the government had on 22 December dispatched food for up to 400 people who were in a "real dire situation" in Morukajore village of Namaru Sub-County in Nakapiripirit district.

Shift in focus

For its part, WFP said the humanitarian community was contemplating changing its approach by focusing on the underlying factors responsible for underdevelopment in the region.

A survey conducted in August and September by WFP, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Ministry of Health and the International Baby Food Action Network, found global acute malnutrition rates (GAM) of 10.5 percent in Kotido and 2.7 percent in Moroto districts in Karamoja (10 percent is considered the emergency threshold).

Samkange said WFP had adopted three main priorities to better address the root causes of hunger to achieve lasting solutions to chronic vulnerability. These were: emergency humanitarian action; food and nutrition security; and agricultural and market support.

"We need to address issues like water irrigation and water catchment mechanisms because much of the water that Karamoja gets ends up in other areas of the country," Samkange said, adding that food deliveries would cater for half the people's needs.

"We want to close the gap by improving people's productivity. We also see food deliveries as an opportunity for other agencies. They can be used to communicate with the people on issues such as sanitation and nutrition. We have added a bar of soap to all food rations because we believe that when we improve hygiene, we shall largely improve nutrition security."

Parts of northern Uganda, which experienced intense insecurity for almost two decades in the war between government forces and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), seem to be recovering as the region has started recording increased food production. The population in the region two years ago relied completely on food aid.

WFP hopes the former recipients of relief aid will soon start being a source of relief food purchases.

"We also want to change our system in the north," Samkange said. "We want to transform those communities from recipients of relief to producers of relief because of their fertile soil. They just need encouragement and assurance that the market is there."

However, the initiative faces one challenge - a lack of storage facilities.

"This is a huge obstacle because about 40 percent of the produce is normally spoilt due to a lack of storage facilities," Samkange said.

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