News releases

NAIROBI – Devastating floods threaten to worsen food insecurity across eastern Africa as heavy rains lash a region that less than a year ago was in the grips of drought, warns the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is activating its revamped approach to operations in Ethiopia, a major step which will start to reach 3.2 million people with food assistance for the first time since June 2023. WFP food aid was suspended nationwide following reports of large-scale diversions earlier this year.

ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun rolling out food distributions to nearly 900,000 refugees in Ethiopia, following a full revamp of the safeguards and controls in its refugee operations. Families living in refugee camps across five regions, including new arrivals who have fled from Sudan, are receiving food parcels for the first time since WFP paused food distributions in June 2023, following reports of large-scale diversions.

ROME – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is accelerating efforts to roll out enhanced safeguards and controls that will ensure humanitarian food assistance reaches targeted, vulnerable people across Ethiopia. This follows a joint statement by Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and USAID announcing their commitment to addressing deeply concerning revelations of food aid diversion.

NAIROBI – Millions of people in the Horn of Africa are trapped in a hunger emergency as the region lurches from crisis to crisis: the longest drought in recorded history has given way to rains and flash flooding, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned today. Food and energy prices remain stubbornly high and the impact of the conflict in Sudan reverberates around the region.

ROME – The World Food Programme (WFP) is rolling out comprehensive, systemic measures to prevent further misuse of life-saving aid in response to the discovery of widespread diversion of humanitarian food assistance in Ethiopia last month. WFP paused food distributions in the Tigray region after finding evidence of significant food aid sales in local markets. WFP immediately began an investigation and is enhancing safeguards and controls to ensure that necessary assistance reaches the most vulnerable women, men, and children.

ROME – The World Food Programme (WFP) is deeply concerned by the recent reports of significant diversion of humanitarian food assistance in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region. WFP takes this issue extremely seriously and will not tolerate any interference in its distribution of critical food aid to the most vulnerable women, men and children.

As needs grow and refugees continue to arrive, UN agencies and partner organizations today appealed for $116 million to provide life-saving assistance to Somali refugees seeking safety in an extremely remote area of Ethiopia’s Somali region.

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered over 2,400 metric tons of food, medical, nutrition and other lifesaving supplies to Ethiopia’s Tigray region following the signing of a peace agreement earlier this month and the reopening of all four road corridors. However, deliveries of assistance within Tigray are not matching the needs and WFP and its cooperating partners urgently need access to all parts of the region to deliver food and nutrition assistance to 2.3 million vulnerable people.

Addis Ababa, 21 November 2022 - The European Union (EU), through its partnership with UNICEF and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), has granted €33 million (1.8 billion Ethiopian Birr) to restore education services and implement school feeding programmes so children living in conflict-affected areas in Ethiopia can get back to learning.

Rome/Seoul – The head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) office in the Republic of Korea has announced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has contributed US$ 2.4 million to WFP’s food assistance in Ethiopia, Jordan, Türkiye and Afghanistan.

ROME – It is reprehensible that millions of people will be pushed further into hunger by the resumption of fighting in Northern Ethiopia. In the past few months, the humanitarian truce has allowed WFP and our partners to reach almost 5 million people in Tigray. However, yesterday that lifeline was severed.

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Ethiopian Government Refugees and Returnees Service (RRS) appealed today for US$73m to provide food rations to over 750,000 refugees in Ethiopia, over the next six months. WFP will completely run out of food for refugees by October, leaving vulnerable families who are dependent on food assistance at risk of undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, susceptibility to diseases/infection and increased protection risks, the three agencies warn.

ADDIS ABABA –  The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes USD 60 million from the United Arab Emirates to support their humanitarian response in Ethiopia. The funding will provide emergency food and nutrition assistance in response to an alarming rise in food insecurity, particularly in the north of the country where 19 months of war has almost exhausted people’s coping mechanisms and displaced hundreds of thousands from their homes. More than 13 million people require humanitarian food assistance in conflict-affected Afar, Amhara and Tigray regions.
This comes against the backdrop of the global food crisis where rising costs linked to the war in Ukraine are compounding woes. The UAE funds, delivered through the Famine Relief Fund, will allow WFP to continue to address the urgent food needs of 1.6 million people in the conflict-affected north of Ethiopia through food distributions in Tigray, Afar and Amhara. Conditions in Ethiopia have deteriorated due to the combination of conflict, climate shocks and the economic impacts of COVID-19 and the recent crisis in Ukraine. Inflation is at its highest peak in ten years - and the population in need of food assistance has doubled over the past 12 months – to around 20.4 million people.

ADDIS ABABA –  Hunger is tightening its grip on more than 20[1] million people in Ethiopia who are facing a combination of conflict in the north and climate shocks – drought – in the south while dwindling resources mean food and nutrition support may run dry from next month, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.

ROME – Further food ration cuts are imminent for refugees as humanitarian needs multiply around the world while funding struggles to keep pace, warns the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on World Refugee Day. The somber warning comes as WFP has already been forced to significantly reduce rations to refugees across its operations.

Nairobi – The Horn of Africa is experiencing the driest conditions recorded since 1981, with severe drought leaving an estimated 13 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia facing severe hunger in the first quarter of this year, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.

NAIROBI – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a contribution of DKK 28.4 million (USD 4.3 million) from the Government of Denmark for Scaling Up Anticipatory Action for Food Security to reduce the effects of climate shocks in the Horn of Africa. This is in addition to the DKK 15 million (USD 2.2 million) given by the Government of Denmark in 2019, to establish systems for financing that is allocated in advance of a climate disaster. This financing enables implementation of pre-agreed anticipatory actions, to reduce the impacts of predictable climate hazards before they materialize.

ADDIS ABABA –  A new food security assessment, released today by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), shows that almost 40 percent of Tigrayans are suffering an extreme lack of food, after 15 months of conflict. Meanwhile, across all three conflict-affected regions of the north more than 9 million people are in need of humanitarian food assistance, the highest number yet.

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned that its life-saving food assistance operations in northern Ethiopia are about to grind to a halt because intense fighting has blocked the passage of fuel and food.

ADDIS ABABA –  The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is facing a major funding shortfall over the next six months threatening its ability to meet the critical food and nutrition needs of millions of food insecure Ethiopians and refugees.

ADDIS ABABA – The number of people in need of humanitarian food assistance across northern Ethiopia has grown to an estimated 9.4 million as a direct result of ongoing conflict, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced today.

This is a summary of what was said by WFP Spokesperson Tomson Phiri – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today's press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.


Geneva – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) calls on all parties to the conflict in northern Ethiopia to respect humanitarian operations and assets and allow unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief to civilians in need.

CAIRO – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a donation package totalling €7.5 million (approximately US$8.1 million) from the Government of Belgium to support the food agency’s response to rising food needs in Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and ARRA, the national agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs, appealed today for US$68 million to avoid food ration cuts for over 700,000 refugees in Ethiopia.