Overview
12 countries (Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Mozambique, Madagascar, Malawi, Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) had finalised their annual vulnerability assessments by the time that the SADC Dissemination Forum was held. Malawi and Tanzania still had to complete their vulnerability assessments.
Compared to last year, the total number of food insecure population in the 12 Member States reporting, decreased by 19% from 31 million in 2016/17 marketing year to 25 million in the 2017/18 marketing year. This positive change is attributed to improved rainfall, national strategic interventions and subsequent harvests in almost all countries, with the exception of parts of DRC, Namibia and parts of Madagascar.
National strategic interventions included input subsidies and nutritional support programmes. For countries that had poor production reasons varied from poor rainfall performance, crop and plant diseases, pest infestations, conflict and displacement of populations.