NGO Umbrella Grants

C-SAFE-Meeting Emergency Food Needs in Southern Africa

The Consortium for the Southern Africa Food Security Emergency, known by the acronym C-SAFE, is an innovative collaboration of three nongovernmental organizations that are working together to assist three of the countries hardest hit by the ongoing food security crisis in southern Africa. This program has made a key contribution to averting famine in the region by improving the nutritional status of vulnerable households and communities, while also establishing developmental relief strategies to promote timely recovery and to mitigate future shocks. It also recognizes the impact of HIV/AIDS on food security, and has incorporated programming to begin addressing the impact of this epidemic.

C-SAFE was awarded $114 million, including 160,000 metric tons of food aid by the U.S. Agency For International Development to develop relief and recovery programs in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi. Designed to complement the ongoing efforts of the United Nations World Food Program in the three countries, the initiative works as a partnership of Catholic Relief Services, CARE and World Vision. While a large part of the project is focused on food distribution, C-SAFE will introduce education and training related to nutrition, diet and crop diversification to support the longer-term food security and nutritional status of the vulnerable groups.

The program was launched in January 2003, with the first food distributions between March and May. In Zimbabwe, C-Safe members have so far delivered 541,148 metric tons of food in 9 districts out of the 12,400,000 metric tons at its disposal. Supplementary feeding resulted in distributions to 24,572 beneficiaries, including pregnant/lactating mothers, malnourished children younger than five and the chronically ill. In Zambia and Malawi, 12,200,000 metric tons and 7,400,000 metric tons respectively had been received for distribution.

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