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

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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