A daily selection of news reports from the world's media dealing with hunger and responses to it.
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Donors channelling funds towards Syrian refugees in Lebanon must also assist their poor Lebanese hosts to diffuse rising tensions, aid workers and a government official said ahead of an international pledging conference for humanitarian aid to Syria and its neighbours. (..) Aid agencies have already tried to tailor their programmes accordingly. Instead of distributing food, for example, the World Food Programme (WFP) gives refugees vouchers to redeem food at local shops with which it has signed contracts.
The United Nations says the huge influx of Syrian refugees crossing into neighboring Jordan during the past week was larger than anticipated and left its agencies, already suffering from a funding shortfall, reeling under the influx. U.N. officials are crying out for more funding as they rush to build showers, toilets and a school for the newcomers. (..) International donors have pledged less than 3 percent to a $1 billion U.N. appeal made last month to aid the more than 670,000 Syrian refugees estimated to have fled to surrounding countries during the 22-month uprising to topple President Bashar Assad. The U.N. says it hopes a donor conference for Syrian refugees Wednesday in Kuwait will rectify the dire funding situation.
Most of those who made the journey on this night were women and children. Some had walked for hours, others for days, coming from cities as close as Daraa and as far as Aleppo. (..) Jordan's Border Guard said the border will remain open but that the exodus from southern Syria has severely taxed resources.
We are at a tipping point in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. The world is becoming a less predictable and more threatening place for the poorest and most vulnerable. As we grow more interconnected, a range of complex risks, including climate change, environmental degradation, population growth, conflict, and food and fuel price volatility, are exacerbating the challenges faced by vulnerable communities. Unless we protect the world's poorest people and empower them to adapt to change and build robust, adaptable and more prosperous livelihoods, we face a future where every shock becomes an opportunity for hunger and poverty to thrive.
For more than a year, following a spate of kidnappings of aid workers, outside journalists have not been able to visit this isolated, arid camp.(..) The World Food Programme relies on donor funds to feed the almost half a million people in Dadaab. But they are almost $40 million short on keeping people fed for the next six months and are contemplating ration cuts in a camp where people currently exist on the bare minimum. Australia has donated two million dollars but it is a drop in the bucket for what is actually needed.