Locally available and affordable resources have untapped potential for food security, HIV/AIDS, mitigation and sustainable rural livelihoods, which could improve food security. A new vision of agriculture, encourages farmers to maintain,
develop and exchange broad crop genetic diversity.

The OPEC Fund for International Development has distributed over 43 000 metric tons of food aid to towns
and villages in nine African countries that are affected by
the current food crisis sweeping much of Africa. Under a special Food Aid Grant Account, the OPEC Fund has provided a total of US$20 million to assist a number of countries severely affected by the worsening crisis. The World Food Programme (WFP) has administered the grant in eight of
the beneficiary countries.

Much of southern Africa is currently battling severe drought conditions, failing rains and agricultural crises. Widespread food shortages are adding to difficult circumstances resulting in a rising death toll. The explosive impact of HIV/AIDS on food security in Africa is a well recognized factor, but little has been done to empower rural communities with local resources to cope with this crisis, a report commissioned by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has found.
"The tendency is for donors and NGOs to merely assist by providing aid. While this is needed, people also have the capacities to cope and their approaches are sometimes more tangible. Sometimes aid and [agricultural policies] don't reach the most vulnerable," the author of the report told the UN information network, IRIN. The report, 'Agrobiodiversity Strategies to Combat Food Insecurity and HIV/AIDS Impact in Rural Africa', also states that the rural poor have always relied on biological resources such as different crop varieties, medicinal plants and livestock to meet their basic needs. "Agro biodiversity represents locally available and affordable resources with untapped potential for food security,
HIV/AIDS mitigation and sustainable rural livelihoods," the report found. "It is a new vision of agriculture, where the goal is for farmers to maintain, develop and exchange a broad crop genetic diversity to better meet their fundamental food, nutrition and livelihood needs," it noted.

In another effort to help in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the United Nations will hold a workshop to provide government officials from African countries with tools to better understand the demographic aspects of the disease. The Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs is organising the event and it will focus on presentations by experts and interactive discussions between trainees and experts on technical and measurement aspects of HIV/AIDS. There is still much uncertainty surrounding
both the estimated prevalence of the disease in different populations and the path it will follow in the future. The workshop will also discuss ways to improve communication, especially through the mass media. The social and
economic effects of the scourge will be addressed in conjunction with related policies and programmes.

The Consortium for Southern Africa's Food Emergency
(C-SAFE) in its latest situation report states that the organisation’s current programs will focus more on
nutritional and HIV/AIDS education aimed at improving
and maintaining the nutritional status of vulnerable groups. Given that the impact of HIV/AIDS has aggravated food shortages, brought on largely by drought and floods, "refining and enhancing the targeting of beneficiaries" is critical. This is done through activities centred on training, demonstrations on using traditional foods, methods of preparation that conserve the nutritional value of foods, and making food more palatable for chronically ill beneficiaries. In a bid to increase the productive assets of vulnerable groups, "activities focus on introducing mitigative agricultural rehabilitation initiatives, such as the reconstruction of dams and small-scale irrigation systems for enhanced access to water" and the rehabilitation of feeder roads to improve access to markets. "Activities will be accompanied by
training for natural resource management, specifically
on soil fertility, erosion management and water
conservation methodologies.”

According to a UN representative the most important factor
in alleviating the food crisis and poverty will be the phasing out of agricultural subsidies in developed nations. This came as the charity Oxfam told rich countries to give priority to abandoning their farm subsidies and import tariffs.

The World Bank predicts that 140 million people could be lifted out of poverty if a good trade deal is reached at next week's meetings of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Cancun, Mexico. The estimate comes in a report on global economic prospects. World Bank economists say that if the Doha development round of trade talks, initiated at the ministerial meeting held in Doha, Qatar, in 2001, leads to
a good trade deal that results in all nations reducing trade barriers this could raise world incomes by as much as
$500 billion. One World Bank economist stated that, "A
good Doha agreement that lifted 140 million additional people out of poverty could markedly help Africa, indeed nearly half of the total projected increase in the number of people lifted out of poverty would accrue in Africa."

The economists noted that the onus must be on wealthy nations to end or reduce agricultural subsidies and manufacturing tariffs, which keep developing nations at a disadvantage. An agreement on agriculture at Cancun would have the most impact for sub-Saharan Africa where: "Seventy percent of the poverty … is in agriculture and
most of the protection in the world trading system is in agriculture so clearly movement on one side, reducing, improving market access, reducing tariff escalation on products could go a long way towards alleviating some of
the poverty pressures."