Addressing food security: A view from multilateral institutions

Abstract

The issue of food security at both the household and national levels has taken center stage in Zimbabwe due to a variety of reasons. Historically, Zimbabwe was once regarded as the food basket of the region; however, over the last eight years there has been a major transformation from being a food surplus, self-sufficient nation to a severe food deficit basket case. While various authors have expressed varying opinions as to the cause of this major negative transformation, the real reasons have yet to be identified and analyzed. The Zimbabwean government has largely blamed frequent droughts as the major cause of food deficit; however, other countries in the region do not seem to have suffered the same effects. Zimbabwe has a well-developed agricultural irrigation sector in terms of farm dams and other storage facilities, and one would have expected these facilities to mitigate the effects of the drought.