World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

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.

Families in Guatemala that are still recovering from the destruction caused by the earthquake of 7 November 2012 and the aftermath early 2013  are now facing a new calamity: coffee rust. Due to this plague, the coffee harvest, Guatemala main export, has decreased, reducing the incomes and food access of vulnerable households.
 

Purchase for Progress (P4P) started in late 2008 in Guatemala with the support of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. Thanks to P4P some 14,800 small holder farmers –organized in 81 cooperatives—have sold more than 8,000 metric tons of food to WFP and in local markets. In its fourth anniversary, Sheryl Schneider, P4P Coordinator, reviews its achievements and future plans.

Thanks to this initiative a group of Guatemala women living with HIV learn about their condition, to give emotional support to one another and to develop new skills that will allow them to earn a living and put food on the table for their families.

Helping poor rural women become successful farmers is one of the best ways to build a food-secure world. That’s what the P4P programme is doing in Guatemala –with major support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) - teaching women how to grow food to eat and sell on local markets. It's just one example of what investing in women farmers can achieve:

The families live in the departments of Baja Verapaz, El Progreso, Jutiapa and El Quiché, which are located in the so-called “Dry Corridor”, a region affected by a prolonged drought. Meanwhile the Government of Guatemala is providing food assistance to other families in the departements of Chiquimula, Zacapa and Jalapa.

Hector is an assistant in the VAM (Vulnerability Assessment and Mapping) unit of WFP’s Guatemala office. His job is mainly to carry out food security and nutrition assessments and to produce maps displaying this information. He also helps with managing information databases.              
 

Mam is a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala and Mexico by about 500,000 people. The Guatemala Ministry of Education and WFP have been trained in this language to more than 300 teachers of bilingual schools in the use of textbooks in Mam among students to promote gender equality, food security and nutrition, and other topics.

The World Food Programme in partnership with Radio National Corporation (RCN) launched the campaign "1,000 Days to Change a Life." This 2-month campaign aims to raise awareness among Guatemala's 14 million population about the impact of chronic malnutrition, which affects nearly 50 percent of Guatemalan children under 5 years of age.