Biden Quietly Gives Mozambique $41 Million

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said on Sunday it received $41 million in funding from the U.S. government for emergency aid in Mozambique.

The WFP also said the United States is buying 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine for shipment to African countries facing drought and starvation.

“Thanks to the recent contributions from the United States, the WFP will be able once more to offer a complete basket of foodstuffs, from October to December, which will avert a humanitarian crisis,” said Pierre Lucas, deputy director of the WFP in Mozambique.

Lucas said another $43.5 million would be needed by March to provide necessary emergency assistance to conflict-displaced persons in Mozambique.

“Without additional new funds, we shall run out of money in the first quarter of 2023, precisely at the start of the period of shortages, when the food reserves become exhausted,” he warned.

Mozambique has been ravaged by an exceptionally vicious Islamist insurgency linked to the Islamic State. The most intense fighting swirled around the gas-rich coastal province of Cabo Delgado, effectively controlled by the insurgents in spring 2021.

In June 2022, the Biden administration announced a $14-million-per-year effort to rebuild Cabo Delgado and other conflict-damaged towns in Mozambique. The program included job training programs intended to thwart the insurgents from recruiting unemployed young people.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced by fighting in Mozambique, especially around Cabo Delgado. Some began tentatively returning to their villages in the spring of 2022, but many remain in refugee camps. Even before these displacements, Mozambique was largely impoverished despite revenue from foreign energy companies, which was a major driving force behind the insurgency.

The insurgents have been pushed back from Cabo Delgado with the assistance of troops from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), but the ISIS Mozambique fighters responded by intensifying their attacks on northern villages to prove they remain an effective terrorist force.

WFP Executive Director David Beasley announced on Sunday the U.S. government will buy 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine over the next few weeks and ship it to starving Africans, under an agreement with Russia that opened Ukraine’s ports for food shipments. Ukraine was a major supplier of grain for WFP programs prior to the Russian invasion.

The WFP has already commissioned one shipload of grain from Ukraine for Africa, carrying 23,000 metric tons of grain earmarked for drought- and conflict-stricken regions of Ethiopia. Beasley did not confirm the final destinations of the United States-financed grain shipments, but he spoke from northern Kenya, where a drought lasting for several years has created a severe food crisis.

“I think there’s a high probability we’ll have a declaration of famine,” the WFP director said, describing the crisis in the Horn of Africa as “a perfect storm on top of a perfect storm, a tsunami on top of a tsunami.”

Beasley urged other countries to step up with food donations for Africa, especially China and the oil-rich Gulf states. He said it was “inexcusable” for the Gulf states not to help more at a time of “record-breaking” oil profits, and complained the WFP gets “diddly-squat from China” even though it has become the world’s second-largest economy.

“Even if this drought ends, we’re talking about a global food crisis at least for another 12 months – but in terms of the poorest of the poor, it’s gonna take several years to come out of this,” he warned.