WFP has been present in the Kyrgyz Republic with a Country Office in Bishkek since 2008 and a Sub-Office in Osh since 2010. Through WFP operations from early 2009 to mid-2011, over 41,000 metric tons of food commodities reached more than a million most vulnerable people in the country. Starting with assistance to thousands of people who struggled to keep their families alive through the worst winter in 44 years and then a searing drought, WFP has since expanded its activities to programmes designed to restore rural infrastructure, improve communities’ resilience to shocks and protect and restore livelihoods.
In 2010, a violent popular uprising that resulted in the overthrow of the government followed by inter-ethnic clashes in the South of the Republic created a new pool of vulnerable people in need of immediate emergency assistance.
WFP responded to the acute needs of the most vulnerable and food-insecure households with two emergency programmes: Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF), which provides staple foods to the most needy rural households in six out of the country’s seven provinces, and Targeted General Food Distributions (GFD), which supports those struggling to rebuild their livelihoods after the violent events of June 2010 in Osh and Jalalabad. Although the violence has subsided, WFP continues to provide medium- and long-term support in the South to rebuild infrastructure and support the reconciliation and peace-building process. A pilot Food for Work (FFW) initiative started in 2010 supporting infrastructure improvements, disaster mitigation, environmental protection and peace-building.
In July 2011, WFP moved from Emergency Operations to a Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO). The need for assistance continues as Kyrgyz society recovers from a series of shocks including the political and social upheavals. The country is highly dependent on imports of food and energy and therefore extremely vulnerable to increasingly volatile commodity markets. Frequent exposure to natural disasters and weak social safety nets exacerbate the situation, particularly of the most vulnerable. WFP’s February 2011 Emergency Food Security Assessment (EFSA) found that a quarter of the severely food-insecure households used negative coping strategies which entail risks for the health and nutritional status of the most vulnerable members in the short and medium term.
Over a period of two years — from mid 2011 until mid 2013 — the PRRO aims to improve food security nationwide through three main interventions:
Firstly, the operation will continue to provide targeted seasonal food assistance to vulnerable, food insecure families in rural communities throughout the country. This is to ensure that the poorest and most food-insecure people will have the best possible opportunity to feed their families during the winter and pre-harvest lean season in spring without engaging in harmful coping strategies.
Secondly, where possible, WFP will assist target beneficiaries through Food for Work (FFW) and Food for Training (FFT) activities, thus paving the way for a more sustainable improvement of their food security situation. FFW assists food insecure communities to build up resilience to shocks, such as natural disasters, through investment in rural asset creation and disaster mitigation activities.
Finally, WFP provides support to the Government to strengthen food security monitoring as a way to better anticipate and address food shocks in view of the increased risks faced by the most vulnerable. Government counterparts will receive training that is based on the methodology of the Emergency Food Assessments and Vulnerability Analysis Mapping (VAM) aimed at gauging and predicting trends in food security across the country.