World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Despite a huge increase in the flow of aid—daily flights at Port-au-Prince's one-runway airport have surged from 30 to 180—the amount of relief supplies remains inadequate to the need. The World Food Program, for example, said more than a quarter-million ready-to-eat food rations had been distributed in Haiti by Tuesday, but that was enough for only a fraction of the three million people thought to be in desperate need. The WFP said it needs to deliver 100 million ready-to-eat rations in the next 30 days, but it only had 16 million meals in the pipeline.

The UN World Food Programme says it has provided 200,000 people with rations for seven days, but the UN says three million to 3.5 million people have been affected by the quake and it hopes to increase the number of people receiving food to one million this week and at least two million in the following two weeks.

The Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, Josette Sheeran, will travel to Port-au-Prince on Thursday to assess the situation. (..) Justte Sheeran, WFP Executive Director, said, "Well, I am headed into Haiti to look at the logistics of this operation myself, these are the among most complex logistics we have ever seen in a humanitarian operation. In addition to the entire city being destroyed we have warehouses that have collapsed, we have roads closed, we have runways broken, we have ports damaged."

In one of the ramshackle tent cities that have sprouted in open spaces all across Port-au-Prince, Isa Longchamp, a dishevelled and dejected eight-year-old girl, starts to whimper. After losing her mother when the Haitian capital was devastated by the earthquake of January 12th, she is now struggling to survive. Batted aside when hundreds of desperate victims of the disaster swarmed around aid workers handing out a batch of supplies earlier in the day, she is still hungry.(..)Officials at the World Food Programme said that a week after the earthquake, 200,000 people had received ration packs of high-nutrition biscuits.

As buildings crashed to the ground around her after Haiti's earthquake, Yolette Etienne reacted as any longtime relief worker would.(..)"Come to the press office," said Alejandro Lopez-Chicheri, a spokesman for the World Food Program, gesturing toward his cot on a grassy spot outside a trailer at the logistics camp.(..)The WFP, which in normal times feeds hundreds of thousands of Haitians, was hit so hard that it could not distribute aid the day after the quake.(..)

Fuel shortages, impassable roads and ruptured communications in earthquake-stricken Haiti are slowing the distribution of vital aid to survivors - but is poor coordination of aid work compounding these problems?(..)The U.N. World Food Programme is the "master of logistics" and "if they are struggling you can see how difficult it is", he added.

In five days, more than 300,000 Zynga game players purchased $1.5 million in virtual social goods to support relief efforts in Haiti. Through Zynga’s top four games, users from 47 countries donated to U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) (..). “We are extremely grateful to Zynga for this contribution,” said Nancy Roman, WFP’s director of communications. “Through their donations, Zynga players are helping us to bring urgently needed food assistance to people who have been plunged into hunger by this devastating earthquake. We started distributing food within 24 hours of the earthquake, and in the coming weeks, we aim to deliver weekly rations to 2 million people.”

The World Food Program said more than 250,000 ready-to-eat food rations had been distributed in Haiti by Tuesday, reaching only a fraction of the 3 million people thought to be in desperate need. There have been anecdotal reports of starvation among the old and infirm, but apparently no widespread starvation yet. The WFP said it needs to deliver 100 million ready-to-eat rations in the next 30 days. Based on pledges from the United States, Italy and Denmark, it has 16 million in the pipeline.

Troops, doctors and aid workers are flowing into Haiti, while nations pledge millions of dollars in aid. But how do you handle a crisis of this magnitude? (..) International assistance is co-ordinated in "cluster groups" to ensure that essential aspects of the disaster response are properly co-ordinated and monitored. (..) Logistics cluster: chaired by WFP.

A strong aftershock has rocked Haiti, sending screaming people running into the streets (..). The World Food Programme said it was planning to bring in 10,000 gallons (40,000 litres) of diesel a day from the neighbouring Dominican Republic as Haitian fuel supplies dried up.