World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Every day, 500g of boiled wheat is divided up between two adults, four children, a calf, a goat and a donkey in the Farah household. (..) Shahid Haji, of the World Food Programme (WFP), which supports the PSNP with food, said: "We are stuck in the emergency mode – people need aid. They have not had the chance to build any resilience."

The British public has so far donated £9m to an appeal launched by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella group of British charities, for people experiencing severe food shortages in east Africa. (..) The FSNA, started by the World Food Programme and funded by USAid, uses an integrated phase classification (IPC) five-point scale, ranging from "generally food secure" (1) to "catastrophe/famine" (5).

The international community needs take immediate action to avert a food crisis in the Horn of Africa, a U.N. expert said. (..) The U.N. World Food Program said there is an evolving hunger crisis in the region brought on by lingering drought.

The World Food Program said Tuesday it was urgently scaling up food deliveries. But WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said the agency must come up with $189 million more in donations to cover the $477 million that it needs to meet needs in the region known as the Horn of Africa.

(..) The appeal from the World Food Programme (WFP) came as the Rome-based UN agency is scaling up the delivery in the region of highly fortified, supplementary food products especially targeting children below the age of three.

A humanitarian agency is appealing for funds to cover a 40 per cent deficit in its budget for refugees in Kenya and Ethiopia. The World Food Programme (WFP) says its Sh42.9 billion (US$477 million) budget is inadequate for its operations in the Horn of Africa due to the growing number of refugees.

The U.N. World Food Program says it is stepping up efforts to help the most vulnerable victims of drought in the Horn of Africa. World Food Program Executive Director Josette Sheeran says the agency is increasing its delivery of food to millions of people left hungry by the severe drought in the Horn of Africa.

The plight of more than 10 million drought-stricken people in East Africa has sparked more aid agency appeals for funding, and donor governments have begun mobilising assistance. (..) The United States, meantime, has deployed a disaster assistance response team, based in Kenya and Ethiopia, to help the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and other aid agencies there coordinate emergency aid operations.

The number of Ethiopians in need of humanitarian assistance has risen to 4.57 million, 40 percent more than estimated in April, said State Minister for Agriculture Mitiku Kassa. (..) Ethiopia is one of five countries suffering from the drought that is affecting as many as 10 million people, the United Nations World Food Programme said last week.

For months aid agencies, governments and experts have been warning of the threat of a drought in the Horn of Africa. Now with millions affected, relief agencies and aid departments are attempting to raise money and provide assistance on the ground. With warning systems apparently failing, Think Africa Press asks five experts what are the main drivers of food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, and what can be done to bring about greater food security in the region?