FEED THE PEOPLE; STARVE EXTREMISM: CONTINUING NEEDS FOR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 DUSHANBE 000522 SIPDIS AIDAC SIPDIS DEPT FOR SCA/CEN DEPT ALSO PASS USAID E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAID EAGR ECON PHUM PREL WFP TI SUBJECT: FEED THE PEOPLE; STARVE EXTREMISM: CONTINUING NEEDS FOR FOOD AID IN TAJIKISTAN Ref: (a) April 10 MSP Senior Review for Embassy Dushanbe; (b) April 11 Spratlen-Jacobson e-mail; (c) Dushanbe 490; (d) Dushanbe 219 ¶1. Embassy Dushanbe appreciates the opportunity for senior review of its Mission Strategic Plan via digital video conference April 10 (ref A). The robust attendance from representatives of State and other agencies clearly demonstrated a keen level of interest in several of our most pressing issues. In accordance with ref B e-mail, post offers the following synopsis of our arguments for continuation of food security programs in Tajikistan as discussed during the meeting. We will send comments on management staffing and corruption programming separately. ¶2. Summary: Tajikistan's PL-480 Food For Peace program is scheduled to end this year. Post's country team believes this is a critical mistake, which could have immediate and severe humanitarian consequences and a negative long-term effect on Tajikistan's economic security and political stability. Although Tajikistan is not yet a failed state (a question that framed the MSP review),it is clear that continuation of the Food For Peace program could be the single most important intervention to address immediate humanitarian concerns, contribute to economic growth and democratic development, and head off the kinds of social stresses that will lead to instability and extremism. End summary. ¶3. High Impact Program: The PL-480 Food For Peace program provides food to Tajikistan's most vulnerable people and communities. The food aid is leveraged to achieve developmental goals as well, and has achieved a positive impact on health, education, diversification of agricultural, and local economic growth. The program spurs local food production and raises farm income by aiding rural populations in growing kitchen gardens for household use, school gardens for school lunches, preserving food for the winter, establishing small greenhouses, fruit and vegetable canning operations. School feeding programs, have helped keep children (especially rural girls) in school and provide the most vulnerable children with at least one, nutritious hot meal a day. The program contributes directly to civil society development by encouraging participatory decision making in rural communities. In the context of a world food crisis, Tajikistan's heavy dependence on imported food and falling farm incomes, the Food For Peace program is our most effective instrument for providing short term relief in the hardest hit rural communities and contributes to medium and long-term growth. ¶4. Going Hungry: This winter's food crisis (refs C and D) clearly showed that Tajikistan, the poorest of the former Soviet countries and in fact one of the poorest countries in the world, is unable to meet the basic food needs of its population. The climatic crisis which occurred over the coldest winter in 40 years exacerbated the problem, but was not the sole (or even main) cause. Skyrocketing world food prices have hit Tajikistan hard, as it is one of the world's most food insecure countries, and at the end of a long supply chain controlled by sometimes hostile neighbors. As a result, good nutrition has become beyond the reach of agricultural families already living on the margin. As we have traveled around the country delivering humanitarian assistance, we have found that Qthe country delivering humanitarian assistance, we have found that many families have sold livestock and farm implements as coping mechanisms to survive, and have gone heavily into debt. This portends a more acute drop in farm income and domestic food supplies during the coming year and a more severe humanitarian emergency next winter. We have also met several families that haven't had access to food for days. ¶5. Losing our Partners: When the Food For Peace program ends, we will not only lose the food assistance itself, but the presence of our implementing partners as well. The NGO consortium implementing the Food For Peace program consists of three outstanding organizations: Save the Children, Mercy Corps, and CARE. Their active presence in remote areas of the country provide an early warning system for upcoming crises. Information gathered by this consortium was critical to the assessment of the winter emergency and in designing a suitable mechanism to deliver aid. The UN system has limited capacity in Tajikistan, and was not even able to gather the basic data to describe the emergency or issue an appeal, without the help of our Food For Peace partners. The WFP mission here is chronically short of funds and has plans to withdraw entirely by ¶2009. This is in stark contrast to neighboring Afghanistan, where the UN's capacity to gather data and respond to emergencies is much more effective. The Tajik Government has even less capacity than the multilateral organizations. Well after the spring thaw had begun, top officials told donors that they still had no ability or plan to collect data from the remote areas of the country which had DUSHANBE 00000522 002 OF 002 suffered during the emergency. Indeed, the top officials assigned to interact with donor governments were not even aware of the existence of the sole government-donor-implementer mechanism in place which traditionally responds to less complex spot emergencies such as avalanches or floods. ¶6. Social Strains: Falling farm incomes and failing communities have produced visible social strains in Tajikistan. Mass labor migration (with estimates as high as a million Tajik men seeking employment mostly in Russia and Kazakhstan) has left many rural communities without working age men. Migrant remittances are used up almost entirely on basic living necessities and contribute little to investment. Various experts are concerned that the migration may contribute to public health threats, such as HIV/AIDS transmission, trafficking in narcotics and people, and the spread of extremist ideology. The communities left behind are showing some alarming indications. Education is faltering; drop out rates for girls are noticeably higher than for boys in many communities - a sign of economic necessity and growing social conservatism. Recent local press articles have also discussed suicide among women as a growing phenomenon - an early warning indicator more typical of the Afghanistan under the Taliban. ¶7. Strategic Concerns: Given Tajikistan's strategic location - it shares a long border with Afghanistan, is a major transit route for Afghan drugs, and a recruiting/transit area for terrorist organizations such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan -- it is in our interest to continue to provide food assistance. To end this vital program now will contribute to a deteriorating humanitarian situation on the border of a war zone. We ask that our Washington colleagues find a way to extend the food assistance program in Tajikistan. JACOBSON