World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

WFP has hailed the increasing support and commitment of 12 new European Union Member States towards achieving the number one Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty and hunger by 2015.

WFP has welcomed a cash donation of US$10 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to its operations in West Africa, where many of the poorest people in the world are living under trying conditions.

As harvests roll in across West Africa’s Sahel, WFP has warned that although households are restocking their granaries, millions of children across the region remain threatened by malnutrition.

As household food stocks begin to run low across the Sahel region of West Africa, the United Nations World Food Programme today urged the international community to continue supporting programmes which mitigate the very worst effects of food shortages among the most vulnerable.

WFP calls on the international community to rally strongly behind its efforts to tackle hunger and poverty in West Africa, the poorest region of the world.

Brussels - WFP welcomes a cash donation of five million euros from Belgium which will allow the agency to provide urgently needed food to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Niger, Mali, South Sudan, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

WFP steps up emergency distributions of food in Mauritania, including to 6,300 people suffering from serious food shortages in parts of the remote Hodh Chargui region.

Bamako WFP increases its emergency appeal for Mali in order to feed an additional 175,000 children in the hardest-hit parts of the country and avoid it slipping into a humanitarian crisis similar to neighbouring Niger.

Dakar - In advance of the international donor countries meeting for the G8 at Gleneagles, Scotland, WFP warns that less than US$10 million could tilt the balance from despair to hope for the most vulnerable victims of the current food crisis in two of the world\'s poorest countries: Niger and Mali.