World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

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.

KHARTOUM – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today welcomed the news that three Latvian men working as helicopter aircrew for the WFP United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, have been freed after more than a month in captivity.

Today we have had the great pleasure of welcoming the European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva, on her first visit to the World Food Programme (WFP) headquarters in Rome.

JUBA – The number of people in southern Sudan in need of food assistance has more than quadrupled from almost 1 million in 2009 to 4.3 million this year because of conflict and drought, UN food agencies and Southern Sudan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said today.

COPENHAGEN – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today launched a pilot project to provide fuel-efficient stoves to women in Sudan and Uganda, to reduce the risk of violence they run while gathering firewood and at the same time protect the environment.

JUBA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has commenced air drops of food assistance into Southern Sudan to feed 155,600 people cut off from road access during current rains in areas hit by conflict, high food prices and poor harvests because of drought.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that banditry is delaying vital food deliveries to Darfur while a lack of contributions may ground its Humanitarian Air Service at the end of the month.

WFP says that relentless attacks on truck convoys in Darfur are pushing to the brink the agency’s ability to feed more than 3 million people each month.

Thanks to a fast response by donors, the humanitarian air service which flies aid workers to critical areas in Sudan will continue running until the end of September.

The WFP said that the Ugandan driver of a WFP-contracted truck was killed in an ambush in southern Sudan, bringing to five the number of WFP-contracted drivers or their assistants killed in attacks in South Sudan this year.