WFP grants food assistance to one million Malians

The World Food Programme (WFP) will this year give food assistance to more than a million Malians through an emergency operation for people affected by the conflict in the north of the country. (..) The emergency operation will affect about 650,000 displaced people inside and their host families, who will benefit from direct assistance in food and cash. About the country programme, WFP will feed about 526,000 people through interventions that will create community activities, such as land preservation and irrigation. (..) The prevention of malnutrition in women, children and food for school children are also included in the WFP's priorities in Mali.

World poverty is shrinking rapidly, new index reveals

Some of the poorest people in the world are becoming significantly less poor, according to a groundbreaking academic study which has taken a new approach to measuring deprivation. The report, by Oxford University's poverty and human development initiative, predicts that countries among the most impoverished in the world could see acute poverty eradicated within 20 years if they continue at present rates.

Head of UN food aid agency urges support for Mali and entire Sahel region

The international community must continue its efforts to help feed people in the Sahel, the head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today, following a visit to the West African region marred by high levels of food and nutrition insecurity, as well as the effects of the conflict in Mali. “The Sahel is facing a double threat: instability, caused by a conflict that has sent refugees across its borders, and chronic hunger, caused by cycles of drought and poor harvests. Last year the international community helped avert a crisis in the Sahel, but our work is not over,” WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin said in a news release. She spent five days in Burkina Faso and Mali, which along with Cameroon, Chad, the Gambia, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal, comprise the Sahel. Last year the international community provided $1.2 billion in assistance to feed around 10 million people in the region. (..) Meanwhile, in New York, the Security Council was briefed today in a closed-door session on Mali and the wider Sahel region by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos.

Grim food security outlook for Zimbabwe

According to Felix Bamezon, UN World Food Programme (WFP) country director, Zimbabwe’s current food insecurity levels are the worst in four years. “During the peak hunger period of January to March 2013, approximately 19 percent of Zimbabwe’s rural population - the equivalent of one in five people - are estimated to be in need of food assistance,” he told IRIN. (..) Of the country’s 13 million people, WFP and the government are providing food aid to 1.58 million in 37 districts across the country.