World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Not too long ago, Mark Diang was a child soldier in southern Sudan. Thankfully, he managed to leave that life behind and he now works for WFP as a security assistant. He recently received a special award from WFP for his critical role in negotiating safe passage for urgent food aid along a dangerous river route.

As South Sudan moves towards independence and southerners look to build up business and commerce, traffic on the region’s roads is likely to get heavier. That makes the road rehabilitation work being carried out by WFP's logistics team more crucial than ever.

As southern Sudan holds a referendum on independence, WFP is working to ensure that the landmark event doesn’t produce yet more hunger in a region where food security has been undermined by decades of conflict and natural disasters. Here are four ways we aim to keep hunger at bay.

Grace Martin Lado, 25, has returned to Southern Sudan 18 years after her family fled the fighting there. Her family faced an arduous trip back to their homeland and food rations from WFP are helping them to resettle.

Halima, a 28-year-old mother from Northern Darfur, has won first prize in a contest among local women trained by WFP to make their own clean-burning cook stoves. She won by designing a stove that consumes less wood and produces less smoke than all of the others. View video

Khadija, a mother of 14, recently got a new stove that burns two thirds less wood than the open fire she used before. That means much less time spent foraging for firewood, a dangerous necessity in northern Darfur which carries the risk of rape at the hands of roving militants.

Alek Chol needs to be eating nutritious food so that her breast milk will be nourishing to her two-month old baby and help him grow. But in the middle of Southern Sudan's hunger season, the sort of food she needs can be hard to come by. That's why WFP is helping out.

Voters went to the polls last week in Sudan, a country where WFP is running its biggest operation worldwide. We aim to bring food assistance to 11 million Sudanese people in 2010, including 4.3 million in the south. Here are the top ten hunger facts for Sudan.

Southern Sudan faces a tough year in 2010 with drought and widespread insecurity pushing up levels of hunger at the same time as the region grapples with political developments that will decide its future.

WFP's SAFE stove project sets out to reduce the amount of time women in two African countries spend looking for firewood and hence to reduce the chance that they will be attacked or raped. At the same time, the project offers a way to help protect the environment from desertification.