Young people in Swaziland get some neighbourhood care from South Africa
How a contribution from the government of South Africa helped the World Food Programme to assist vulnerable children in neighbouring Swaziland
Swaziland — a landlocked country almost entirely contained within the northeast corner of South Africa — faces numerous challenges including poverty, chronic food insecurity and HIV/AIDS. Like other countries in the region, it is only now emerging from the shadow of two successive years of drought caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon.
That is why the World Food Programme was so pleased to have received a contribution of nearly US$ 3 million (ZAR 40 million) from the South African government to provide food assistance for the orphans and other vulnerable children who attend the country’s Neighbourhood Care Points (NCPs).
The support from South Africa will enable WFP to resume food distributions to the NCPs in August. These had to be suspended in mid-2016 due to lack of funding for the programme and, for the past 12 months, many centres struggled to survive. But now, disadvantaged boys and girls at the NCPs will start receiving daily hot meals once again.
For the past few years, five-year-old cousins Wendy, Nosipho and Bandile have been attending classes at Zakhele NCP, just outside one of Swaziland’s largest towns, Manzini. They live with parents or relatives in a nearby compound consisting of some 20 simple stick-and-mud huts. These are very poor families with little or no work. The carers at the NCP say all three children showed signs of malnutrition when first they started coming to the centre.
Swaziland is one of the countries in the region that was hardest hit by drought in recent years. Some 640,000 people — nearly half the population — faced some level of food insecurity during the peak of the 2016–17 lean season.
Due to the lack of funding during the past 12 months, some NCPs were forced to close down. Others, however, were able to continue functioning, thanks to the support from various organisations and community groups. Swaziland’s NCPs provide a safe place for 52,000 disadvantaged boys and girls to access early education while receiving meals and health care.
Although South Africa itself was badly affected by drought during 2015/16, the South African Government, through its Department of International Relations and Cooperation, announced in January 2017 a contribution of some ZAR 40 million/ USD 2.9 million to support WFPs’ work in neighbouring Swaziland’s NCPs. (This follows a contribution of R 180 million by the RSA Government in 2013 to provide assistance to more than a quarter of a million vulnerable women and children in Lesotho).
With these funds, WFP is in the process of purchasing thousands of metric tons of maize, beans and vegetable oil for its NCP assistance programme in Swaziland. A significant proportion of the maize and pulses are being sourced from smallholder farmers in South Africa.
Find out more about WFP in Swaziland
