World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Behind the once exclusive gates of this quake-ravaged nation's only golf course, thousands of sandbags cut a path up and down steep hills, while a new road now doubles as an emergency evacuation route. (..)But while new drainage ditches, cleaner canals and even better pre-positioning of relief supplies by the World Food Program around the country will help reduce the loss of lives, what's desperately needed is available suitable land to relocate camp dwellers, say frustrated aid groups.

If there is a drier, dustier, more desolate place in the Caribbean I'd be amazed to see it. A few weeks ago, this vast space in Haiti now know as Corail Cesselesse was a vast scraggly grassland about 20km outside the capital, Port-au-Prince. (..) Children's NGO Plan International has provided a school at Corail, while Save the Children is working with the district health office to provide healthcare, and to treat malnutrition. World Vision is providing food, which is being distributed by the World Food Programme.

Christina Aguilera has visited children living in refugee camps in Haiti. The star, who has been named Ambassador Against Hunger of the United Nations World Food Programme, spent time with families and children who were receiving food aid.

As Haiti continues to recover from January’s catastrophic earthquake, the head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today announced an increase in cash- and food-for-work programmes for the country. “Step by step, the people of Haiti are rebuilding their country,” said the agency’s Executive Director, Josette Sheeran, in the capital, Port-au-Prince. “This is a tribute to a nation that has shown extraordinary resilience in the face of epic levels of devastation.”

WorldStove founder Nathaniel Mulcahy has just completed two months of work in Haiti, setting up a pilot project that will provide biochar-producing stoves and jobs for the Haitian people. The project was featured in an Earth Day press release from the UN Special Envoy to Haiti (former President Clinton) as an example of "building back better" by incorporating environmental sustainability in the recovery effort.(..)In the next phase of the Haiti project, WorldStove will work with United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Haitian Government to build stove-manufacturing hubs and create thousands of jobs making pellets and distributing biochar in the rural areas.

About three hours north of Port-au-Prince, the Artibonite Valley is the center of Haiti's rice production. This season, farmer Charles Surfoad is storing his rice rather than selling it.(..)Etienne Labonde, head of WFP's program in Haiti, says, as of March, food aid did not cause major disruptions in Haiti's economy. "Maybe it's an impression, but it's not the facts at the moment," he says.

The International humanitarian community which sends aid to Haiti through Dominican Republic’s corridor will have to pay the storage and transport costs in ports and airports starting in May.(..)In a statement WFP Dominican Republic coordinator Peter Casier said Haiti’s ports and airports have been restored, which facilitates the direct arrival of aid to that country.

A team of media-development experts that has been working with radio stations in earthquake-damaged Haiti to provide critical information to people in need is, in the process, fundamentally improving the delivery of humanitarian aid, according to officials from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.(..)When the U.N. WFP set up a voucher system to distribute rice and other staples, Internews explained what the vouchers were, how and where to get them, who was eligible, and so on. Once vouchers began circulating, Internews reported on what was working and what wasn’t.

You name it, Camp Corail has got it. And Camp Obama does not. The organized relocation camp at Corail-Cesselesse has thousands of spacious, hurricane-resistant tents on groomed, graded mountain soil. The settlement three miles (four kilometers) down the road — named after the U.S. president in hopes of getting attention from foreigners — has leaky plastic tarps and wooden sticks pitched on a muddy slope. Corail has a stocked U.N. WFP warehouse for its 3,000-and-counting residents; the more than 8,500 at Camp Obama are desperate for food and water.

In the weeks after the earthquake struck in Haiti, the UN WFP rushed in emergency rations such as high energy biscuits and ready-to-eat meals. Over time, the food aid has shifted toward programs that not only fight hunger, but help to rebuild the country. These are Cash and Food for Work projects for Haitians. The WFood Programme uses a 60 percent cash and 40 percent food incentive for Haitian workers to do reconstruction projects. The food ration is enough for a family of five.