Today, a record one billion people – mostly women and children – go to bed hungry each night.  Hunger is on the march, with the food, fuel and financial crises making hunger the Millennium Development Goal most threatened.

WFP's mission of reaching the hungry is more important than ever, and we depend on the support of more than 100 nations. Germany has always been a key donor, and in this year of crises for the world’s most vulnerable, it has provided a record contribution to fight hunger. This generosity from Germany has helped save millions of lives and I extend our profound gratitude.

Germany has so far donated US$113 million in 2009 – its highest ever annual contribution, making it WFP’s 6 th biggest donor. This support is helping WFP to fund development programmes and to provide urgent food assistance in a range of countries, including Yemen, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Sudan. Most recently, Germany donated US$ 1.4 million to our crucial humanitarian air service in Somalia.

German support for WFP has been reinforced by new partnerships with key institutions such as Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), Germany’s leading development bank, which has pledged more than US$50 million over the last year to feed hungry people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Haiti, Yemen and Afghanistan. Furthermore, in delivering aid worldwide WFP cooperates with German NGOs such as German Agro Action, who is a key implementing partner in Sudan.

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency. In 2009, WFP aims to feed 108 million people in 74 countries.

WFP now provides RSS feeds to help journalists keep up with the latest press releases, videos and photos as they are published on WFP.org. For more details see: http://www.wfp.org/rss
WFP now has a dedicated ISDN line in Italy for quality two-way interviews with WFP officials.
For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):
Tobias Bauer, WFP/Berlin, Tel. +49-30-20614929, Mob. +49-177 247 3178