World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Nearly half of the 15 million people in Niger are facing a food crisis as flooding plagues the African country, the United Nations said. The U.N.'s World Food Program earlier this month said there was an urgent need to help the 4 million people in Niger affected by flooding.

Heavy rains in Niger have displaced nearly 200,000 in recent weeks, the United Nations says, calling on donors and aid agencies to send shelter material, blankets and other supplies. (..) The World Food Programme is working to provide highly nutritious food rations to 670,000 children and their families, Bettina Luescher, a spokeswoman for the agency, said Monday.

Hundreds of thousands of children across central Africa are at risk of death from starvation and disease after flash flooding worsened an already chronic humanitarian crisis caused by drought. (..) Such is the shortage of international aid that the United Nations World Food Programme has had to scale back its £57m operation to feed eight million people in Niger and instead concentrate its efforts on the most vulnerable – children under two – according to Oxfam.

Niger will avoid the "worst" in its most severe food crisis since 2005 with aid reaching millions left hungry by last year's failed harvest, the government said. (..) The World Food Program is still waiting for donor assistance to fund aid work through the coming months.

Sounding the alarm on Niger 's ongoing food crisis, the head of the World Food Program (WFP) Josette Sheeran and UN humanitarian chief John Holmes have repeatedly raised the issue as an underfunded "disaster in the making," UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters here on Tuesday. (..)"(The WFP) is concentrating on children under five and their families," said Luescher. "We are bringing food rations to 670,000 children and their families, comprising a total of 5 million people," she added.

Aid agency Oxfam warned Tuesday of a "double disaster" for millions of people in Niger where heavy rains and flooding are compounding food shortages caused by a prolonged drought. (..) Last week, the UN announced a further 15 million dollars (12 million euros) for World Food Programme operations in Niger.

Niger has been hit by a double disaster as recent floods compound an existing food crisis, a UK aid agency warned. (..) The World Food Programme recently acknowledged that it was forced to limit its food distribution to only 40% of those in need because of a funding shortfall.

The United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated an additional 15 million U.S. dollars to enable the UN food agency to provide relief to an estimated 1.7 million people (..). The CERF allocation made available to the UN World Food Program (WFP) last week will be used to improve nutrition and provide livelihood support to people most affected by the crisis, said the officials.

THE UNITED Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to make an “agonising” decision in Niger, the country worst hit by the West Africa food crisis, and suspend food aid to families with children over the age of two because of a huge funding shortfall. According to Gianluca Ferrera, deputy country director for the WFP in Niger, acute malnutrition rates stood at 16.7 per cent of children between the ages of three and five years, above the emergency threshold of 15 per cent. (..) “We had planned to distribute 75,000 tonnes of food in August and September but because of limited resources can only hand out 42,000,” he told The Irish Times.

The World Food Programme (WFP) will not be able to help all of the 8 million people in Niger going hungry this year unless it receives more money from donors, a spokesman for the U.N. agency said. (..) "With the limited resources, it will be very difficult, even impossible to meet the initial target (of 7.9 million people) unless donors come forward as quickly as possible," the spokesman said.