A daily selection of news reports from the world's media dealing with hunger and responses to it.
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The UN says there has been a huge leap in the numbers of Syrian refugees arriving in Jordan, putting a considerable strain on resources. A UN official told the BBC that up to 3,000 were arriving every day and at least 50,000 were waiting to cross. UNHCR says there are now more than 670,000 registered Syrian refugees and people awaiting registration in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt.
The fact that so much has changed in Mali since I was here last month only goes to prove what an unstable world it is. Admittedly, the warning signals were there back in December and by the time I boarded the plane at Bamako to fly back to Europe I grew more and more concerned that we weren’t preparing sufficiently for the hard times to come.
By Kristalina Georgieva
Geneva/Niamey (ICRC) – Some 7,000 Malians (people displaced by fighting in the Diabali area and families hosting them) are today receiving emergency supplies of food and other basic necessities in the towns of Niono, Kala Seguida and Mariko, in the central part of the country. The aid is being distributed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Mali Red Cross.
Royal DSM, the global Life Sciences and Materials Sciences company, and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian organization fighting hunger around the world, today signed an Agreement extending their existing partnership for three years (to 2015) to combat hidden hunger and malnutrition in the developing world. DSM and WFP will seek to double the number of people who benefit from their work together, from the current annual reach of 15 million to 25-30 million per year by 2015. DSM’s public-private partnership with WFP, in place since 2007, has contributed to improving the diets of people, using essential vitamins, nutrients and fortified rice, in countries that include Nepal, Kenya, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The strengthened partnership will focus on pregnant and nursing women, young children and vulnerable households.
Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and, to a lesser degree, Iraq, all of them neighbors of the calamity unfolding in Syria, which is bleeding lives at the rate of more than 100 a day and refugees in excess of 100,000 a month. (..) Most can expect little in the way of assistance because the international community has yet to respond to the reality that the most violent and intractable of the Arab Spring revolts also is spawning a humanitarian catastrophe. A U.N. appeal last month for a record $1.5 billion to aid needy Syrians inside and outside the country has drawn few pledges. (..) Refugees in Lebanon are left largely to fend for themselves, finding whatever shelter they can and relying on the generosity of local communities.