$1.2 bn WFP aid for global food crisis

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it is rolling out an additional US $1.2 billion in food assistance to help tens of millions of people in more than 60 nations hardest hit by the urgent food crisis.

“With soaring food and fuel prices, hunger is on the march and we must act now,” United Nations World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran said at the International Summit on Food Security in Rome.

Sheeran said that if we do not act quickly, the bottom billion will become the bottom two billion virtually overnight as their purchasing power is cut in half due to a doubling in food and fuel prices.

The Executive Director also said that the agency is helping the world to tackle the crisis by tripling the number of people who receive food in Haiti, doubling those who will receive food in Afghanistan, and delivering more critical food assistance to people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

“We have mobilised our 10,000 employees and every dollar and euro given to us, to reach as many hungry people as we can at this critical time,” Sheeran said.

She noted that the international community has made great progress over the past four decades in reducing the percentage of hungry worldwide, from 37 per cent to 17 per cent in 2002.

“High food and fuel prices now threaten to short-circuit this potential and undue many of these hard earned gains. Only by pulling together in the spirit of global interdependence, can we respond strategically to this challenge,” Sheeran said.

UN WFP also warned that record high food and fuel prices threaten to unwind hard-earned gains and increase human suffering.

Countries most affected by high food prices—Haiti, Liberia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Yemen, Senegal, Burundi, Central African Republic and Sierra Leone—are provided support in the form of food, medication, resources and financial help by the UN agency.

Sheeran said that more action is needed to help individuals, families and communities hold the line against hunger, and to create space for UN partners and others to work on medium and longer term solutions to boost agricultural production.

“Here is our opportunity – and our human dilemma. We simply cannot solve this challenge divided. The situation we face presents an opportunity for the global community to demonstrate concerted leadership as never before”.