News releases

London - The GSMA and United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) are expanding their partnership to help the world’s most vulnerable people. Through the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation programme, which has been funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) since 2017, this three-year collaboration will primarily focus on the use of mobile money to deliver digital assistance through cash-based transfers to save lives in global emergencies, including pandemics and natural disasters.

NADI, Fiji – Countries and territories of the Pacific Islands and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reached a milestone today with the launch of the humanitarian air service in the region. The first flight, from Nadi, Fiji to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, completed this morning, delivered 44 cubic metres of essential medical supplies that will be used in the Government of Papua New Guinea’s response to COVID-19.

Rome – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is extremely saddened by the Lebanon blasts and extends its condolences to the people of Lebanon, which has always been at the forefront of our humanitarian response in the region.

SUDAN—The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched its nutrition support programme for the first time in Khartoum for 175,000 pregnant and nursing women and children under five, in collaboration with the Khartoum State Ministry of Health (SMOH).

SEOUL/ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has received US$ 3 million from the Republic of Korea to help address the impacts of the desert locust outbreak in East Africa. The donation will provide a much-needed boost to several WFP operations where vulnerable communities are struggling with the impact that the desert locusts have had on their food security and livelihoods, as well as the triple threat of conflict, climate change and the socio-economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

BANGUI – The World Food Programme (WFP) today welcomed the first ever delivery of food assistance to the landlocked Central African Republic (C.A.R.) using barges along the Ubangui River from neighbouring Republic of Congo. The new supply route from Brazzaville to Bangui is an alternative and complementary supply line that will make live-saving food assistance available more quickly in C.A.R.

KATHMANDU – Fortified rice, lentils and vegetable oil, totalling to nearly 1,500 MT, donated by the United States have been distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Government of Nepal to school children (from Grade1-8) in rural areas who are missing out on nutritious school lunches they used to receive in Sudur Paschim and Karnali provinces.

SEOUL/ROME – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea has contributed US$ 2.5 million to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), enabling it to continue providing United Nations Humanitarian Air Services (UNHAS) in countries where conflicts, natural disasters and the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic are pushing millions into hunger and poverty.

DHAKA: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Oxfam Bangladesh and Green Delta Insurance Company Ltd. launched a new insurance scheme on 1 July to protect casual agricultural labourers in Bangladesh from catastrophic floods during this year’s monsoon season. The on-going flood has affected more than 1 million people in South Asia this month.

KABUL – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a contribution of US$12 million from USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance in support of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Afghanistan, where the public health emergency is compounded by increasing levels of food insecurity and where many communities’ livelihoods are being obliterated.

BAGHDAD – The European Union has provided a new contribution of €5 million for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to provide food assistance to vulnerable families, over six months.

COLOMBO – The Government of Japan has donated a large shipment of canned fish, weighing 388 MT and worth JPY 300 million (LKR 519 million), to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Government of Sri Lanka, to meet the protein needs of school children covered by the national school meal programme.

ROME/JOHANNESBURG – With COVID-19 aggravating an already severe hunger crisis in Zimbabwe, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today appealed for an additional US$250 million to support a rapidly expanding emergency operation for millions at-risk.

LUSAKA –The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) this week completed a first distribution of cash to Zambians in urban areas impacted by COVID-19, reaching some 180,000 vulnerable residents in Lusaka and Kafue. The plan is to assist more than 650,000 people over the next six months.

DUSHANBE – Switzerland, through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), contributed US$1.1 million towards the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) COVID-19 response in Tajikistan.

CAIRO – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Egypt received a generous contribution of EURO15 million from the Egyptian-German Debt Swap Programme for 2020.

JUBA - Recurring violence in Jonglei and the Greater Pibor Administrative Area in the eastern part of South Sudan has already displaced more than 60,000 people and is crippling the food security and livelihoods of growing numbers of people, two United Nations agencies warned today.

Dhaka – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a new contribution of USD 4.5 million from the Government of Germany towards the critical work for Rohingya families and their host communities in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

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Paletwa, MYANMAR – This week the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has commenced distribution of a newly-arrived tranche of 165 tons of emergency food and nutrition assistance for communities affected by conflict in Paletwa Town in remote southern Chin State, which has been largely cut off from regular trade and supply routes for many months.

COLOMBO – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Australian Government are supporting the Government of Sri Lanka with take-home rations for children covered by the national school meal programme.

ROME – A new report published today shows that people in some 25 countries are set to face devastating levels of hunger in coming months due to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. While the greatest concentration of need is in Africa, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in the Middle East and Asia – including middle-income countries - are also being ravaged by crippling levels of food insecurity, according to the Early Warning Analysis of Acute Food Security Hotspots, compiled by the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.