World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Today, we are completing a four-day visit to Niger, which is experiencing a deepening humanitarian crisis. In the Ouallam and Maradi regions, we saw fathers and mothers struggling to feed their families in villages where hunger has already taken hold in advance of the traditional hunger season.

The Government is Brazil is providing $2 375 000 for a new local food purchase programme to be set up by FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) to benefit farmers and vulnerable populations in five African countries – Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is deeply concerned by an unseasonal rise in grain prices in Niger and is planning an urgent scale-up of food assistance operations -- aimed at as many as one million people in vulnerable households.

The growing threat of food security in Niger is deeply worrying. The country appears to be heading towards a full-scale food crisis if early measures are not taken. Vulnerable families are still exhausted by the last crisis, barely a year ago, and they have little ability to confront another emergency.

--Denise Brown, WFP Niger Country Director, Niamey

A joint assessment by FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) says that acute malnutrition rates in Niger remain high despite a good harvest.

YOKOHAMA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed the largest ever, one-off donation from the Government of Japan, amounting to US$ 196.6 million.  The donation will be used to provide urgently needed food and nutritional assistance to millions of the most vulnerable people in 20 countries in Asia and Africa and will also support logistics operations in eight countries where WFP is working.

NIAMEY - Despite a good harvest and pastoral season in late 2010, the nutritional situation of children remains alarming in Niger where more than 15 children in 100 suffer from acute malnutrition, according to the results of the National Nutrition Survey made public on 16 December. 

ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today thanked the Swedish government for pledging record levels of support in 2011 for programmes that provide food assistance to the most vulnerable people around the world.  Sweden’s contribution to WFP -- which is fully flexible and can be used to provide food assistance wherever it is needed most -- is expected to reach SEK 556 million in 2011, a 15 per cent increase on the 2010 contribution.

ROME – As harvest time approaches in the Eastern Sahel, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today that rates of malnutrition among children remain at critical levels in Chad.

OVERVIEW - With millions of people facing hunger in Niger caused by a combination of drought, poor harvests and high food prices, WFP is scaling up to reach almost 8 million people with food assistance over the next 6 months.