For a second consecutive year, most of Bolivia’s territory has been hard hit by natural disasters. Boosted by the El Niño Phenomenon, the impact of the extreme climatic events on the population was the worst in 25 years. Drought, hail storms, frost, strong winds, mudslides and extremely heavy rains since the beginning of the year have caused loss of lives, injury, displaced many people and seriously damaged housing, infrastructure and agriculture.
More than 25,000 people are now living in temporary shelters and camps in Beni, Santa Cruz and Tarija. Agriculture has been one of the heaviest hit sectors. Preliminary reports indicate that over 22,000 cattle were lost and more than 100,000 hectares of crops worth US dollars 90 million (mainly soybean, rice, potatoes, pulses, maize and yucca) have been destroyed. Most of the production belonged to subsistence farmers who are entirely dependent on it for their survival.
The magnitude of the catastrophe forced the Government to declare a state of National Emergency on 18 January 2007 and appealed for international assistance to the international community on 7 February 2007. Initially WFP responded with an Immediate Response (IR)-EMOP assisting 30,000 people for a period of two months.
In the meantime, weather conditions worsened, and the floods have now affected about 350,000 people. In order to avoid a major humanitarian crisis, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Development (MDRAMA) has officially requested WFP to increase assistance to people with critical food access problems until they have restored their livelihoods.
This EMOP will assist 90,000 people in the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Cochabamba, Tarija and Pando from 1 May 2007 – 30 April 2008.
The objectives of the operation are:
These objectives are in line with WFP’s strategic objectives 1 and 2. The total cost to WFP will be 6.5 million dollars.
