Transcript as delivered of remarks by UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley during today’s UN Security Council consultation on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
NEW YORK –
I honestly wish I had some good news. It seems like a repeat performance of what we have done in 2018, 2019. I would literally like to be pretty clear and pretty blunt about the situation because I don’t want a single person to leave here with any doubt about the scale of the humanitarian disaster that we’re now confronting in Yemen.
GENEVA/ROME – A new report has found global hunger and population displacement - both already at record levels when COVID-19 struck - could surge as people on the move and those reliant on a dwindling flow of remittances desperately seek work to support their families.
Lilongwe – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), in collaboration with the Government of Malawi and the Logistics Cluster, today welcomes a contribution of USD 195,000 (ISK 27,000,000) from the Government of Iceland towards humanitarian logistics services in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malawi.
BAGHDAD - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a generous contribution of US$600,000 from the Republic of Korea to help provide food assistance for three months for more than 350,000 people in camps in Iraq.
ROME – The world has been put on a heightened famine alert with a new report by two United Nations agencies that contains a stark warning; four countries contain areas that could soon slip into famine if conditions there undergo “any further deterioration over the coming months”. These are Burkina Faso in West Africa’s Sahel region, northeastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.
MANAGUA – As powerful Hurricane Eta makes landfall along the northern Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), at the request of the Government, has positioned 80 metric tons of food assistance in the region. The Category 4 hurricane, with winds of 240 km/h, is bringing heavy rain and causing damage to homes, agricultural fields, roads and power lines.
BANGKOK – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a new contribution of US$800,000 from the Republic of Korea. The funding will go towards WFP’s emergency operations in Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Asia and the Pacific region.
MOMBASA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in partnership with national and local government today launched cash transfers for 24,000 families whose livelihoods were destroyed by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on informal urban settlements in the city of Mombasa.
New Delhi: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Government of Rajasthan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work together to achieve food security and improved nutrition in the state to make significant progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 2. This cooperation will target people at high risk of malnutrition, especially women, children and adolescent girls, to have improved nutrition by 2025.
DHAKA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has reopened its fresh food corners in the Rohingya camps, allowing trade and business activities to resume after months of closure due to COVID-19 prevention measures. An important economic opportunity for local farmers and traders in Cox’s Bazar, the fresh food corners have benefitted both the refugees and their host community.
One in five children under five in parts of Yemen are estimated to be acutely malnourished and in urgent need of treatment as malnutrition cases increase across the south, UN agencies warn.
ADEN – Acute malnutrition rates among children under five are the highest ever recorded in parts of Yemen, with more than half a million cases in southern districts, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Malnutrition analysis released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and partners.
TRIPOLI/TUNIS – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Libya welcomed a generous donation of €3.5 million from the Government of Italy to support WFP operations that include vital food assistance to over 60,000 vulnerable people across the country, support for emergency response operations and data collection to identify needs and guide humanitarian intervention.
BUJUMBURA - The World Food Programme (WFP) Special Advisor on Mother and Child Health and Nutrition, Her Royal Highness Princess Sarah Zeid of Jordan, visited Burundi for a week to encourage the mission of the government and WFP to improve the nutritional health of mothers and children.
RAMALLAH – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomed a contribution of JPY 300 million (US$2.8 million approximately) from the Government of Japan that will help WFP meet the pressing food needs of the most vulnerable Palestinian families in Gaza and the West Bank.
DAKAR/ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is today warning that unless humanitarian access is urgently granted to organizations like the WFP, catastrophic levels of hunger could hit hard in parts of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The stark warning comes ahead of the High-Level Ministerial Conference on the Central Sahel in Copenhagen on 20 October 2020.
MASERU – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes the European Union’s (EU) contribution of €2.8 million (M55.5 million) to provide much needed relief assistance to the most vulnerable people in Lesotho affected by three consecutive years of drought and the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
ROME – A basic meal is far beyond the reach of millions of people in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic joins conflict, climate change and economic troubles in pushing up levels of hunger around the world, according to a new study released today by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
ROME – The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Programme (WFP) is a humbling, moving recognition of the work of WFP staff who lay their lives on the line every day to bring food and assistance for close to 100 million hungry children, women and men across the world. People whose lives are often brutally torn apart by instability, insecurity and conflict.
AMMAN, 8 October 2020 - UN Agencies* in the region unveiled today “Rej’et El Sineh” [‘Learning is Back’], a song to encourage the return to learning for all children and youth across the region.
BEIRUT – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Lebanon is stepping up its response to the explosion that ripped through the capital in August by providing cash assistance for up to 50,000 people (10,000 families), to help them meet basic needs such as food and healthcare.
MUZAFFARABAD – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today handed over a state-of-the-art Humanitarian Response Facility (HRF) to the Government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). The facility will be used to store and dispatch humanitarian relief supplies for future emergencies, augmenting national capacity and reducing the time needed to respond to crises.
ACCRA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is extending its support to the national social protection programme in Ghana by providing cash transfers to 75,000 daily wage earners and smallholder farmers. The support is to address their food security and nutrition needs while they recover from the negative socio-economic effects of COVID-19 on their livelihoods.
JUBA – On Monday, 5 October, a WORLD Food Programme (WFP) boat convoy carrying food assistance from Bor to Melut and Malakal was attacked near Shambe North. The river convoy consisted of three cargo vessels and a speedboat. The cargo vessels had food assistance and 13 crew aboard.
KAMPALA, 7 October, 2020 – Ugandans in nine urban areas were at Crisis levels of food insecurity or worse for months leading to August because of negative impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown. The worst affected of were Gulu, Jinja and Kasese where nearly one in three people struggled to find nutritious food on a regular basis.
KANO – The Nigerian Government and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today launched a cash and food assistance programme in the three urban COVID-19 hotspots of Abuja, Kano and Lagos. The Government has released 2,000 metric tons of food from its Strategic Grain Reserve (valued at US$1 million), while WFP is releasing US$3 million to provide cash assistance.
