J OHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) — An estimated 45 million people in southern Africa are food insecure, with the number of people without access to adequate, affordable and nutritious food up 10 per cent from last year, the World Food Programme said yesterday.

The novel coronavirus pandemic, coupled with climate change and the struggling economies of several countries, are the main causes of the food insecurity, said international aid organisations in a webinar organised by the Foreign Correspondents Association of Southern Africa.

Zimbabwe is the worst- affected country, with its number of food insecure people expected to reach 8.6 million by the end of this year, World Food Programme director in southern Africa Lola Castro said.

“We are going to see levels of food insecurity that we have never seen for many years,” in 13 of the region’s 16 countries, Castro said.

“We have chronic underlying causes that we know very well, and they are basically mostly related to climatic shocks… drought, floods or big cyclones,” said Castro.

She said COVID-19 was an additional emergency that has enormously hurt the livelihoods of many poor people in the region. Lockdowns have made large numbers of people unemployed, increasing food insecurity, she said.

Many farmers, especially women, had been severely affected by COVID-19 and its impact on food production, said ActionAid Africa humanitarian advisor Chikondi Chabvuta.