World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Four hundred families from the Santa Elena Province are improving their diets by incorporating nutritious foods produced by small farmer associations, thanks to an initiative of the Decentralized Autonomous Government of the Santa Elena Province in partnership with World Food Programme (WFP).

The WFP Deputy Regional Director and Officer in Charge, Alzira Ferreira, and the Regional Director of Plan in the Americas, Roland Angerer, signed an agreement to work together to fight food insecurity to help the most vulnerable populations, especially women and children, in Latin America and the Caribbean.  

ROME/VATICAN CITY – His Holiness Pope Francis this morning granted a private audience to Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).  The meeting took place immediately upon Cousin’s return from Syria and following her recent visit to Israel and Palestine.

Ecuador hosts the largest number of refugees in the western hemisphere. They are mostly Colombians, like Carmen and her family, who are struggling to make even enough money to survive. WFP works with other UN agencies and local governments to assist them.

Our Information Officer in Ecuador, Gabriela Malo, did not expect that a phone call to Beatriz Caces to hear her story about the positive impact a WFP project was having on her and other women selling their vegetables to the school meals programme, would establish a link between them, in spite of living 200 kilometres apart.

The Campo Elias Bravo School serves the Chulamúes community in the province of Carchi, Ecuador, close to the border with Colombia. Of the thirty-two children attending this school, 40 percent are Colombian or their parents come from Colombia. Many have fled violence to seek refuge on this side of the border. But life goes on: children need to go to school and also to eat in order to be able to concentrate in their studies.

"Minga" in Kichwa means “community work”. Our colleague Inés Lopez who is based in Carchi, an Andean province of Ecuador, participated in a “minga” to protect the water source of the Cumbaltar community. Ines did not mind the five blisters the minga left on her hands. Instead she considered a gratifying memory of the day’s work, which involved women who received food once they finished working.

April and May brought the heaviest rains and flooding seen in Ecuador over the last 30 years. WFP provided critical food assistance to the affected people, including those living in a community along the Onzole River. However, Melanie and her family still live fear as the rainy season is far from over in the Esmeraldas province and their home have been flooded three times this year.

An international study conducted in Ecuador to evaluate three food assistance modalities –cash, vouchers and food—among vulnerable populations found that vouchers have several advantages over cash transfers or direct food delivery.

Ecuador’s National Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology announced that 2012 will be a very tough year for the country weather wise. The forecast: unusual heavy rains, especially for the coast and in provinces of the Andes, like Carchi.