World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Mothers and grandmothers around the world tend to want to feed their families. For Sakina Chikwanda in Zimbabwe, this seemed an impossibility following drought in parts of the country. The World Food Programme (WFP) has partnered with the Government of Zimbabwe to ensure those most vulnerable have enough to eat until the next harvest.

More than a million Zimbabweans are estimated to be living in South Africa, many of them without documentation. A special amnesty gave undocumented migrants a year to regularize their stay, and after the amnesty expired in late 2011, South Africa resumed deportation of those who failed to do so. Several thousand Zimbabweans are repatriated every month. At the Beitbridge border post, WFP has been providing them with hot meals to help sustain them through the journey home. 

Matabeleland in Zimbabwe is not known for its bumper harvests but this year, for the first time in many years, 100 smallholder farmers from Insiza have managed to harvest enough maize for themselves and to sell some despite a largely poor agricultural season.

The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) estimates that over 1.6 million people will be food insecure between January and March 2013, the peak hunger months in Zimbabwe. This is a 60 percent increase from the one million people who needed assistance at the beginning of this year. WFP and partners are planning to scale up operations to ensure vulnerable households have enough food to sustain themselves until the next harvest.

Food shortages are on the way for the rural poor of Zimbabwe, according to a new report estimating that poor harvests could leave 1.6 million people in need of food assistance. With food needs on the rise, WFP and its partners are gearing up to respond with a combination food distributions and cash voucher programmes

In Zimbabwe, WFP and the German Government’s development agency, GIZ, are working together to improve the food security of vulnerable people in rural Manicaland. Since 2009, not only has WFP managed the logistics and warehousing of GIZ’s largest agricultural project in Zimbabwe, but recently the project has also adopted WFP’s style of distribution plans and locations.

WFP and partners are working with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to promote food fortification and to identify solutions that will reduce micronutrient deficiencies in the next generation.

With a shift in focus towards productive asset creation, WFP uses food or cash as an incentive for people to work on community projects that will help them grow out of poverty and into food security for their families.

WFP is at the forefront of humanitarian logistics in Zimbabwe, delivering much-needed food assistance to more than a million people in 40 districts this year. However, the number of Zimbabweans benefiting from WFP’s role as logistics service provider and advisor to government and other humanitarian organisations is much greater. In response to a request by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, WFP has recently assessed the national supply chain of a nutritional product given to severely malnourished patients, and has designed procedures to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the programme.

Shylet Kupara and her husband run a small tailoring business from their home in Harare. Since Shylet tested HIV positive three months ago, she has lost weight - and also the strength and energy to sew. "Every day I wish I could wake up and be able to work, to add something to my life, but the illness brings me down," she says.