The UN food agency launched a rare appeal to oil-rich nations to fill a 157 million dollar gap in food supplies that is threatening nearly 10 million people southern Africa countries.
"No funds have yet been pledged by the oil-rich states to our current regional appeal, even though oil prices have been reaching record highs for most of this year," said World Food Programme regional director for southern Africa Mike Sackett.
Sackett said the WFP had started lobbying for more funding from Gulf states through a new office in Dubai.
"They have given assistance in the past to southern Africa, we would very much like to see them become major donors," he added.
Some 9.7 million people in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are in urgent need of food aid to tide them over until the next harvests in April 2006, the WFP said.
Unless the funding shortfall over that period is covered, many people will not receive help in time, Sackett said.
The region, once regarded as the breadbasket of the African continent, is enduring its fourth consecutive year of food shortages and failed crops, partly due to drought.
Top donors so far include the United States (115 million dollars), European Union countries (64 million dollars), neighbouring Malawi (13 million dollars), and Japan (11.8 million dollars).
"Some governments have yet to make a contribution to the regional operation or are simply undecided, faced with competing humanitarian disasters," Sackett said.
"The children of southern Africa need help now, before their emaciated bodies appear on television screens."