HUMANITARIAN agencies say they will need a staggering US$550 million for their programmes in Zimbabwe to alleviate massive starvation and death due to curable diseases such as cholera.

The Zimbabwe Consolidated Appeal for 2009, unveiled in Harare on Tuesday, was made by 35 relief agencies, which included United Nations bodies.

The appeal also coincided with a report by former US president, Jimmy Carter, ex-UN secretary general Kofi Annan, and Graca Machel, the wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, painting a grim picture of the situation in the country.

The trio, who are members of a forum known as Global Elders, were last week prevented by government from conducting an assessment of the humanitarian crisis. But they held interviews with non-governmental organisations, businessmen and politicians from Zimbabwe in neighbouring countries to assess the impact of the crisis.

In barring the world-renowned peace makers, the government said it had urgent business to attend to that included preparations of the summer cropping season and the talks to form a unity government between the MDC and Zanu PF.

"Food is the most serious problem," the Elders said in their report. "There is not enough to meet immediate needs and an acute shortage of seed and fertiliser means that April's harvest will produce a fraction of what is required.

"Donor assistance for the planting season reached only 25% of the poorest rural smallholders."

The 94-page report accompanying the consolidated appeal by the relief agencies says the political impasse in the country that has dragged on for more than eight months since the March harmonised elections had compromised efforts to effectively mobilise support for food security programmes, provision of clean water, health and education services.

Of the total figure of US$550 million, US$315 would go towards the procurement of food, US$60 million for agriculture, US$30 million for education, US$45 million for health and US$21 million for water, sanitation and hygiene.

"The main challenge now is to deal with the increasingly urgent humanitarian needs of millions of Zimbabweans," reads the report's executive summary.

Aid agencies estimate that more than five million Zimbabweans will be dependent on food aid by the first quarter of next year.

The number is likely to grow as the year progress if the 2008/9 cropping season is not rescued.

"Action is urgently required to save household agricultural production in 2009, and mitigate the impact of the failed season in 2008," the report said. "The infrastructure for delivering basic social services is seriously affected, resulting in unprecedented levels of disease incidence and prevalence throughout the country."

World record hyper-inflation and a collapsing banking system posed major challenges to humanitarian operations, with most agencies affected by the lack of cash and inability to access foreign currency, the report said.

The World Food Programme (WFP), which feeds millions of starving Zimbabweans recently warned that it was cutting back on rations to make the available stocks last longer after it got a poor response to appeals for more donations.

"Without immediate increases in food availability, malnutrition rates will inevitably increase sharply," the Elders, said in their report.

They noted that the crisis had also not spared the health and education sectors, once the envy of many on the continent.

Four major hospitals, including the country's two major referral hospitals Parirenyatwa and Harare hospitals, had shut down owing to persistent strikes by doctors and nurses and the acute shortages of medicines.

The closure of the major hospitals also comes at time when the country is battling an unprecedented cholera epidemic.

Zimbabwe also has one of the highest HIV/Aids rates in the world with about 3 500 people dying every week.

The Elders recommended that to reverse the situation, the power-sharing agreement between Zanu PF and the MDC should be implemented and that donors should increase their support to meet urgent humanitarian needs.