This operation has been modified as per Budget revision 6 (see below).

Under PRRO 200162, WFP is providing food assistance to 1.5 million Zimbabweans in 2012. This operation consolidates the activities of its predecessor and aims to achieve sustainable solutions to food insecurity and inadequate nutrition. PRRO 200162 combines relief and early recovery involving food support, cash transfers and vouchers.

Food-insecure people are assisted through:
i) Seasonal Targeted Assistance to protect lives and livelihoods and enhance the self-reliance of vulnerable households in response to seasonal food shortages. Households dependent on rain-fed production affected by seasonal food shortages are assisted during the lean season (January – March). Targeting is based on recommendations of the seasonal food security assessment reports and field verifications. Beneficiaries receive a combination of in-kind food distributions and cash transfers to purchase maize as part of the Cash-for-Cereals initiative. 

ii) Health and Nutrition to improve the wellbeing of chronically ill adults with a view to boost productive recovery. WFP Zimbabwe has adopted a clinical care approach based on nutritional rehabilitation for people living with HIV and TB patients. Assistance is also provided to malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, as well as to children under five. This intervention is part of a comprehensive approach involving nutrition assessment, education and counseling. The Health and Nutrition programme distributes commodities through a combination of in-kind distributions and electronic vouchers with a cash transfer component. Electronic vouchers are used in urban areas where network connectivity is available and more reliable. 

iii) Social Safety Nets to promote food access and consumption among vulnerable food-insecure households. Under this activity, support is provided to extremely poor, food-insecure households with little or no assets, as well as to households hosting Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and returnees from neighboring countries. Food or cash assistance is provided throughout the year, and households with able-bodied members are encouraged to participate in livelihood promotion projects.

Local Purchase:
WFP aims to support local crop production in Zimbabwe, and has identified strategies that will assist in the development of smallholder output markets. In mid-2009, after the Government’s liberalization of grain trade in Zimbabwe and in light of surplus production in certain districts, WFP introduced a Local Purchase Initiative aimed at positioning WFP as an output market for smallholder farmers.

Food for Assets:
WFP’s Food for Assets (FFA) programme aims to empower vulnerable communities to move away from dependency on food assistance and participate in the creation of productive assets that increase their resilience to future food security shocks. FFA forms part of WFP’s new strategic direction which has transitioned from free food distributions to supporting productive asset creation. Able-bodied members of food-insecure families are hired to work on projects that will improve their community and reduce the country’s vulnerability to natural disasters. They are paid through either cash or food that allows them to feed their families.

PRRO 200162 is consistent with the United Nations Development Assistance Framework for Zimbabwe and with the 2012 Consolidated Appeal which indicated that Zimbabwe requires US$268 million in humanitarian assistance for programmes in sectors that include food, health, nutrition and sanitation. This operation also addresses WFP’s Strategic Objectives 1, 3 and 5, and contributes to the Millennium Development Goals 1 and 6.