World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

As the world’s largest humanitarian agency, WFP uses its procurement needs to boost agriculture in developing nations: in 2012, itbought US$1.1 billion worth of food and more than 75 percent of that was in developing countries. Now, through its Purchase forProgress (P4P) programme, WFP is procuring food from smallholder farmers, giving them a greater incentive to invest in theirfarms.

With an education in International Humanitarian Action and background experience working for NGOs, Canadian Brett Hanley was well positioned to take on the challenge of working for WFP's offices in Ethiopia. It’s a long way from her roots in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. We asked Brett about her life and work with WFP.

WFP’s school meals programme has benefitted millions of school children across Ethiopia over the last 19 years and currently serves some 650,000 students in 1,800 schools in different parts of the country. Fatuma is one of those children.
 

The quest for sanctuary when one is in a dire situation often takes not only courage, but also endurance. Yara and his family are among the many refugees who travelled immense distances to get shelter and food in a neigbouring country.

It is a struggle to feed a growing family on land that is subject to droughts and soil erosion. But for Ethiopian smallholder farmers like Abebe Moliso, that's exactly the challenge that life has given them. A land management programme called MERET is helping them deal with it. 

Markos and Elias have received school meals from WFP for the past two years, but the lunch they ate one day in November was special. For the first time ever, the students enjoyed a meal made from crops grown just a few kilometers from their school — purchased by WFP directly from Ethiopian farmers.

Last year, WFP introduced vouchers into its urban HIV/AIDS programme in Ethiopia on a pilot basis, in place of traditional food assistance. People benefiting from the project can redeem vouchers for locally produced food. It’s just one part of a programme that helps people living with HIV and AIDS to get back on their feet. 

 After five years in the MERET programme, Hagdu doesn't need to walk for days to cut trees anymore; his land is preserved, and his family has enough to eat.

Jacob fled his home in South Sudan as a child and ended up in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. In the camp he remembers receiving WFP food assistance and realised its importance. He is now living in Canada, where he has established a charity through which he hopes to build schools in his native land.

With the help of WFP's food support and livelihood assistance programmes, Belaynish Dabe and her HIV-positive husband no longer struggle to feed themselves and their children.  WFP's food support to people living with HIV helps ameliorate the double burden of lack of income and deteriorating health.