News releases

Over 27 million Congolese – one in three people - now critically hungry

Kinshasa/Rome – In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the food security situation remains dire with one in three people – a record high - suffering from acute hunger, two United Nations agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.

ROME – Acute hunger is set to soar in over 20 countries in the coming months without urgent and scaled-up assistance, warn the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) in a new report issued today.

NAYPYITAW, MYANMAR – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned of rising food and fuel prices as the current political unrest starts to impact supply chains and markets.

DAMASCUS – After a decade of upheaval, conflict and displacement, Syrians are facing the worst humanitarian conditions since the start of the crisis, with millions of people sliding into hunger in the last year alone, according to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

NEW YORK – The UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director, David Beasley, addressed the United Nations Security Council today on Yemen, conflict and food insecurity. Here are selected highlights from his remarks

ROME – The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), a critical lifeline transporting humanitarian workers and lifesaving cargo to some of the most challenging and hard-to-reach locations, urgently requires US$ 204 million to continue existing operations beyond February 2021.

BANGUI – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a US$1.6 million (JPY 178 million) contribution from the Government of Japan to provide much-needed food assistance to vulnerable people in the Central African Republic, amid a deepening humanitarian crisis.

Kigali – Today, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced it would reduce food assistance to refugees in Rwanda by a dramatic 60 percent, as of March 2021. Some 135,000 Burundian and Congolese refugees in camps in Rwanda rely on humanitarian assistance to meet their basic food needs each month.

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 is currently conducting needs assessments with the Government of Mozambique and partners. In order to have a full picture of the impact of the devastating cyclone and the extent of the damage, WFP is supporting both on ground and aerial assessments undertaken with drones.

Johannesburg - Escalating conflict and a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Cabo Delgado has left communities completely reliant on humanitarian assistance. According to the Government, attacks by non-state groups have forced more than 565,000 people to flee their homes and villages, abandoning their crops and livelihoods.

NEW YORK – The World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director, David Beasley, addressed United Nations Security Council today on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Here are selected highlights from his remarks:

OUAGADOUGOU – A donation of € 4.2 million from the European Union (EU) contributed to WFP’s efforts to stave off a hunger catastrophe in Burkina Faso, where 2 million people are struggling to feed themselves due to the combined effects of conflict, climate shocks and the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Conflict, floods and COVID-19 push more people into extreme hunger

JUBA – Three United Nations organizations are calling for immediate humanitarian access to parts of South Sudan’s Pibor County in Jonglei State, where people have run out of food and are facing catastrophic levels of hunger according to a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report released today.

ANTANANARIVO – Southern Madagascar is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with 1.5 million people—half the region’s population—needing immediate emergency food assistance, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today. Three straight years of drought have wiped out harvests and hampered people's access to food and COVID-19 is compounding their suffering.

DUBAI/ROME – As a humanitarian crisis builds on the Ethiopia-Sudan border, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed a contribution of US$4.5 million from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to provide life-saving food assistance to refugees fleeing escalating violence in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

ROME – The COVID-19 pandemic is reversing development gains and testing the foundations of global peace, yet it also presents an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate in helping governments and communities build back better. This is the core theme of a high-level virtual meeting in Rome today (1500 CET), bringing together top representatives of the United Na-tions, international financial institutions, African Union and European Union and governments.

ROME – Millions of people in Central America urgently need food assistance in the wake of Hurricane Eta, one of the worst storms in decades, as fears grow of another storm brewing in the coming days.

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.

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.

WINDHOEK – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a contribution of €2million (N$40 million) from the European Union (EU), which will help WFP deliver critical food assistance to 30,000 vulnerable people in Namibia affected by COVID-19 and drought.

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.

Khartoum - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Sudan has welcomed a contribution of US$1.7 million from the Government of Japan to support vulnerable people whose livelihoods and food security are most at risk because of desert locust swarms that migrated to Sudan from Kenya and South Sudan earlier this year.

GUATEMALA CITY – Undernutrition, overweight and obesity cost Guatemala US$12 billion in 2018 amounting to a significant 16.3 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to a report released today by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Resources lost to malnutrition take away from hard won development gains.