Namibia PDNA 2009 - GFDRR

mahangu and maize meal must be mutually interchangeable for
institutional caterers and therefore, the price of mahangu grain
and maize grain must be the same. The same price agreement
and marketing mechanism are applied to both maize and
mahangu, as soon as mahangu is gazetted as the statistics
provided by the Namibian Agronomic Board. It is interesting to
note however the regional variation of key staple prices.
Food utilization
The latest nutritional measurements in the flooded area in
2008 indicated that around 11 percent of women (aged 15
to 49 years) had a Body Mass Index (BMI) under 18.5 kg/
m2 indicating that they are underweight or malnourished. In
addition, an estimated 21.3 percent of women had a BMI near
the underweight cut-offs (22 in a range from 16 to 40), being
vulnerable to shift to the lower BMI category during a period
of low food intake. The measurements for children aged 6 to
59 months indicated high malnourishment rates that need to
be closely monitored:
• Global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate (z-score)
was estimated at 7.6% with NCHS 1977 standards
and at 8.3% with WHO 2005 standards;
• Severe acute malnutrition was found in 1.2%
(NCHS 1977) and 3.7% (WHO 2005) of children.
ownership in their communities. These vulnerable populations
are in need of external assistance.
The situation can be expected to worsen in the coming months
and the food security situation might deteriorate further when
the current food stocks at the household level are exhausted.
These households already suffer from limited access to food,
and will have difficulties to maintain an adequate level of food
consumption in the coming months (from August – September
to the next main harvest in April), unless they are provided
with external food assistance.
To farmers who own cattle, selling it can be a key coping
strategy as the cash obtained this way can cover the food
needs of the household members for a long period of time.
The ownership of cattle draws the line of the population group
in need of assistance.
Food security - Assistance needs
There are an estimated 163,000 people in immediate need
of assistance to cover their basic food needs in the regions
of Caprivi, Kavango, Omusati, Ohangwena, Oshana and
Oshikoto. This period of need is estimated to be from August
– September to the next main harvest in April.
Damage and Losses Assessment
The slow onset of the 2009 floods has exacerbated the impact
of the 2007 drought and the 2008 floods on subsistence
farmers. The chronic food insecurity situation of vulnerable
households in the northern and eastern -central regions
deteriorated, moving many households into acute transitional
food insecurity. Vulnerable households in Ohangwena, Omusati,
Oshana, and Oshikoto Regions were most affected, because
of limited resilience. The Caprivi Region better resisted the
impacts of the floods on food security, and the Kavango Region
was relatively less affected.
While people directly affected by the floods in urban areas
were relocated to temporarily shelters and received food
assistance, the people affected by the floods in rural areas
remained in the villages to protect their assets. The population
groups that did not receive food assistance during the floods
relied on household food stocks and on the support from
relatives and neighbours. However, the population affected by
the floods have moved from a situation of chronic to acute
food insecurity.
The households that are experiencing acute transitorily food
insecurity are mostly headed by subsistence farmers that have
lost their mahangu stocks, and have experienced estimated
losses of 80 percent on average in the main harvest.. These
are mostly single female-headed households, with low crop
production, low expenditure per capita, and low livestock
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Namibia POST-DISASTER NEEDS ASSESSMENT