World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

WFP assists African governments and communities to implement comprehensive, country-led, programmes to tackle hunger the world’s greatest solvable problem. In 2012, out of a total US$4.2 billion expenditure, two thirds (US$2.7 billion) was allocated to Africa. WFP is the world’s biggest buyer of food for humanitarian operations and it is the largest single purchaser of food assistance in Africa, but we do not work alone. This edition of WFP in Africa highlights our partnerships throughout the continent, illustrating the importance of working together to reach shared goals and objectives.

WFP assists African governments and communities to implement comprehensive, country-led, programmes to tackle hunger the world’s greatest solvable problem. In 2012, out of a total US$4.2 billion expenditure, two thirds (US$2.7 billion) was allocated to Africa. WFP is the world’s biggest buyer of food for humanitarian operations and it is the largest single purchaser of food assistance in Africa, but we do not work alone. This edition of WFP in Africa highlights our partnerships throughout the continent, illustrating the importance of working together to reach shared goals and objectives.

 The Annual Evaluation Report for 2010 focuses on operational issues arising from evaluations of country portfolios and operations, and impact evaluations of selected school feeding programmes.

The findings reaffirm WFP’s corporate areas of strength in responding to emergencies under the most difficult circumstances and in providing school feeding, as one of the Programme’s flagship programmes. However, impact evaluations of these programmes also showed the importance of implementing school feeding in cooperation with partners who invest in education sector improvements. Areas where largest improvements can be made relate to food-for-work, where funding often is curtailed and thus strategic objectives moved beyond reach, and nutrition where the ambiguous objectives and small size of programmes make it difficult to demonstrate results.

In a changing environment, WFP’s support to basic education is well in line with government policies and has helped increase the number of children going through school. The Take-Home Rations for girls offer a model of best practice. Supplementary feeding and health and nutrition education has also shown some positive results but needs re-aligning with new government thinking. Overall, sharper focus is needed and learning from the mixed experience on strategies for hand-over to government.

Ghana’s Home-Grown School Feeding programme, although rolled out nationwide under high-level political leadership, shows differences at the regional, district and school levels in administration structure, procurement practices, menu development and meal preparation. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the several implementation mechanisms in the country.