HARARE – The World Food Programme (WFP) will provide small grants of US$12 per month to support vulnerable groups of Zimbabweans in urban areas who are struggling to meet their basic food needs due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The European Union has contributed €3 million (US$3.5 million) to the WFP’s Urban Social Assistance and Resilience Building Programme which is targeting to extend cash assistance to up to 500,000 people by the end of 2021.

Recipients will receive $12 per person monthly through an e-voucher or Western Union cash transfer to help cover basic food needs such as maize meal, cooking oil and salt.

The European Union’s ambassador to Zimbabwe Timo Olkkonen said: “At the EU, we are committed to working with partners like WFP to bring life-saving assistance to vulnerable populations, most of whom are struggling to make ends meet in these challenging times.

“But our assistance can never cover all those in need, only sound public social policies and sustainable economic growth based on political and economic reforms can.”

Francesca Erdelmann, the WFP’s Zimbabwe country director said the already dire food insecurity situation in urban and peri-urban areas had been further exacerbated by restrictive measures implemented to curb the spread of Covid-19. This has resulted in the loss of urban livelihoods and income.

She said: “Urban populations face high living costs to obtain basic food needs, along with other critical items such as rent, water and electricity. We are seeing a 30 percent increase in the average price (in ZWL) of basic food items such as maize meal, maize grain and sugar beans in the first half of 2021, when compared with the second half of 2020.

“Cash assistance can help to ease the burden for households, providing people with greater autonomy when planning monthly expenses.”

The 2020 Urban Livelihoods Assessment estimated that 2.4 million urban dwellers are cereal insecure. The findings, released by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee in March this year, show increasing food insecurity of vulnerable households by 12 percent since 2019. This is due in part to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures that have resulted in the widespread loss of urban livelihoods.

The WFP is already assisting 326,000 people and says it aims to reach up to half-a-million people in urban areas by end of the year.

The United Nations agency says US$88 million is needed to support growing humanitarian needs in urban locations around Zimbabwe.