Tajikistan

Mastona Bekova (left) and her brother Hofiz proudly show the wheat shoots that will be made into Sumalak, a sweet, green confection that symbolizes the New Year Day celebration called Navruz

Navruz: Through the eyes of a child

For a sister and brother in eastern Tajikistan, the Central Asian New Year celebration brings art to their WFP school feeding programme and their father home from Russia.

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Overview

Tajikistan is a low-income, food-deficit country with a population of 7.4 million. Only 7 percent of the land is arable. The country has a poverty rate of 47 percent, the highest of all the countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Nearly two-thirds of the country's population is classified as poor; living on less than US$2.15 per day. The poorest groups of the population spend over 70 percent of their income on food. Around 30 percent of the people are food-insecure, with some 6 percent of them facing severe food insecurity. Tajikistan ranks 127 out of the 187 countries listed in the 2011 UNDP Human Development Index. Access to food is a major challenge, with around one-third of the population affected by food insecurity.