World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

The Food Security, Living Conditions and Social Transfers in Iraq report, jointly conducted by the Government of Iraq and the UN World Food Programme (WFP), shows that 2.2 million Iraqis were facing food insecurity in 2007, compared to 1.9 million in 2011, representing a 7.1 per cent fall. (..) “The Public Distribution System, which was established over two decades ago to help the Iraqi population avoid widespread hunger in the aftermath of war and subsequent sanctions, continues its role as a safety net against hunger, providing crucial support to millions of poor and vulnerable Iraqis today,” said WFP’s Representative and Country Director, Edward Kallon.

Fluctuating water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Iraq’s primary sources of surface water, will continue to mar agricultural development unless more equitable water access rights are agreed with neighbouring countries and modern irrigation techniques are more widely adopted to reduce wastage, says a government official.

With Thai and Vietnamese prices rising, India has already become a significant global supplier, offering rice in a recent Iraqi tender and to the United Nations' World Food Program. Officials have said India will export at least two million tons of ordinary rice over a period of four to six months—but inland transportation and port constraints may limit the country's overall monthly exports including premium Basmati grades to 500,000 tons a monht, the consultant Mr. Zwinger said.

(..) “Today on World Food Day, we celebrate our close cooperation with the Government of Iraq in improving social protection for vulnerable groups at risk of food insecurity,” said Edward Kallon, the WFP Country Director.

Efforts to move much needed food aid through the Habur gate, the main border crossing point along Turkey's 352-km border with Iraq, continue to reap impressive results. "With the huge cargoes of wheat on our doorstop, we anticipate escalating our dispatches by some 40 percent over and above the levels we have achieved up to now on the Turkey corridor," Heather Hill, a spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP), told IRIN in the eastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir on Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fled the country after sectarian violence broke out following the 2003 war which toppled Saddam Hussein. However, the precise number of refugees is hard to ascertain and fluctuates in line with changing perceptions and the security situation in Iraq. (..) UNHCR uses SMS text messages to alert refugees, and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) recently rolled out an SMS food voucher scheme.

Oshana Khamo is one of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have taken refuge in Syria from the violence at home and have been kept waiting for years to be resettled elsewhere to start a new life. (..) While they wait, Iraqi refugees in Syria pay regular visits to the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) offices near Damascus for food assistance. (..) In 2010, the WFP spent 32 million dollars in food assistance to cover the needs of Iraqis registered with the UNHCR. "We calculate the daily needs of each family in calories," said Muzammil Selly, a member of the press office of the WFP.

A New York Times feature recently highlighted the potential and the controversy of the plumpy'nut foods that fight child malnutrition. What cannot be forgotten amidst the debate is the number of malnourished children who need this food--now. (..) School feeding programs across the globe are facing big cuts. Even in Iraq, a country very much in the U.S. spotlight, WFP school feeding for Iraqi children was recently cut because of low funding.

The World Food Program is employing more than 11,000 of the most vulnerable people in Iraq in a cash-for-work program aimed at helping them get enough food to eat. This is an expansion of a pilot scheme WFP started in the Diyala and Baghdad governorates earlier this year.

At the end of August, we will see a U.S. withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But there is another withdrawal already under way in Iraq: humanitarian aid. Low funding has forced the UN WFP to significantly cut programs that benefit Iraqi school children and malnourished children under the age of five. Caroline Legros, a WFP officer in Iraq says, "The plan of reaching 1.76 million beneficiaries (960,000 primary school children and 800,000 pregnant/nursing women, malnourished children under 5, and their families) has been revised to just under 300,000 beneficiaries in total.”