WFP uses food support to build the human capital of communities through school meals and to rebuild the livelihoods of rural families by helping smallholder farmers to rehabilitate agricultural assets with a focus on rice production. A 2008 external evaluation of WFP activities found that school meals was an important factor in revitalizing the education system in rural areas and encouraging the return and resettlement of displaced populations.
WFP also provides food assistance to protect the nutritional and health status of mothers and children at risk of malnutrition, TB patients and People Living with HIV.
Under the new protracted relief and recovery operation (PRRO) due to start in September 2009, WFP activities will include lean season safety net distributions to mitigate the impact of high food prices on vulnerable rural households in the most food insecure counties during the hunger period between harvests.
WFP is strengthening the capacities of government and communities for their increased ownership and participation in the management of WFP programmes through the school meals and food security and nutrition monitoring programmes.
WFP is helping to provide small-scale farmers access to reliable markets at fair price, while improving the capacity of farmer cooperatives in agro-processing and marketing, and in the development of procurement processes. This effort to strengthen the institutional, productive and competitive potentials of farmers and connect them to markets is being implemented through the Purchase for Progress initiative.