A Market Support Programme to Address an Urban Food Crisis in Zimbabwe

Kristy Allen-Shirley is the Communications Coordinator for the Consortium for Southern
Africa Food Security Emergency (C-SAFE), based in Johannesburg, South Africa. CSAFE
is in its second year of implementation for a coordinated 'developmental relief' program
in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The C-SAFE membership includes World Vision,
Catholic Relief Services, CARE, ADRA, Emmanuel International, Save the Children US,
Save the Children UK, Africare, Salvation Army and Malawi Red Cross, and is funded by
USAID's Office of Food For Peace.

It is extremely difficult to address urban food emergencies through traditional general ration programmes. The logistic and targeting challenges are particularly daunting. The market support programme described in this article demonstrates an alternative type of intervention which circumvents many of these difficulties. This type of programme may also be suited to certain rural contexts and may offer a model for future programming (Ed).

During a time when Zimbabwe's urban population has seen its purchasing power slashed by soaring inflation and widespread unemployment, at a time of limited access to food, an innovative market intervention is working to rebuild the flailing commercial sector and sustain the urban poor.

The USAID funded Market Assistance Pilot Programme (MAPP) is providing beneficiaries in Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo, with a low-cost maize alternative - sorghum - through existing commercial channels. C-SAFE, comprised of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), World Vision (WV) and CARE, took the step of piloting the programme in September 2003 as the combined effects of drought, poor economic policy and HIV/AIDS had left livelihoods frayed and urban communities powerless to emerge from a state of chronic food insecurity. Relief and development projects have traditionally focused on rural areas, however in Zimbabwe's case the needs in urban areas are equally critical. Massive market failures, the evaporation of infrastructure and critical wounding of the local economy means that the ability of urban households to recuperate losses is limited. At the same time prospects for hunger relief are poor.