Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Magazine Ma | Page 15

NEWS in brief
World Bank Approves
Emergency Help to Improve
Health and Food Security in
Madagascar
The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has
approved emergency financing to Madagascar to help
the country provide food security for 13 million people
who are coping with a continuing locust infestation and
drought.
“Due to the convergence of several factors (political
crisis, drought, locust infestation, extreme poverty), food
security has increasingly become a growing daily challenge
for the poorest people in Madagascar. Many are having
only a meal a day, others cannot eat everyday” said Haleh
Bridi, World Bank Country Director for Madagascar. “We
strongly felt that the World Bank’s mandate called for an
emergency action in this sector”.
The first of two emergency support projects approved by
the Bank will help to restore and maintain the livelihoods
of the 9 million Malagasy who earn their living from
agriculture and are being affected by locusts and other
natural disasters. The IDA credit of $65 million will target
areas that are affected by both locust infestation and
drought under the Emergency Food Security and Social
Protection project.
The project will help the poorest of these families become
more resilient through safety nets that complement more
traditional agricultural and rural development activities.
“The interventions have the potential to benefit several
million smallholder farmers and poor urban consumers
while reducing dependence on food imports to
manageable levels, said Ziva Razafintsalama Task Team
Leader of the project. “The project would also create
short-term employment through cash-for-work and other
cash transfer modalities that provide a temporary social
safety net for the most vulnerable groups.”
The World Bank’s Board has also approved emergency
funding for Madagascar that will expand the country’s
efforts to bring essential nutrition services to an additional
687,000 pregnant or lactating women and children under
the age of five. The new credit of US$10 million will
expand nutrition services to reach a total of 2.6 million
people, under the existing Emergency Support to Critical
Education, Health and Nutrition Services project.
“Of Madagascar’s 22 million people, 80 percent live
in absolute poverty on less than US$1.25 per day and
many suffer from malnutrition and hunger,” said Jumana

Global Highlights

Qamruddin, Task Team Leader for the project, “This
funding is absolutely critical to help prevent a potential
humanitarian crisis caused by deteriorating food security.”
The project will now be able to support an additional 837
community nutrition sites in the country’s most foodinsecure regions—Vakinankaratra, Itasy, Haute Matsiatra
and Amoron‘i Mania—as well as Betioky and Ampanihy
districts in Atsimo Andrefana where Madagascar’s ongoing
locust infestation originated.

Kariba Gets U.S.$230 Million

Kariba Dam
The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) has secured
US$230 million for the rehabilitation of Kariba Dam,
a development expected to address the dam’s structural
and stability problems, the Financial Gazette’s Companies
& Markets(C&M) can reveal. Energy and Power
Development Minister, Dzikamai Mavhaire, said funding
for Kariba Dam’s rehabilitation would be provided by
ZRA and co-operating partners which are the World Bank,
African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Europe