FOOD SHORTAGES IN GUATEMALA THREATEN HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, WARNS UN AGENCY

Urgent funding is needed to help combat an acute hunger crisis that is ravaging much of Guatemala, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.

The agency cautioned that money only exists to provide food aid to some tens of thousands of families in Guatemala until the end of September, including the provision of a fortified food to 100,000 children under the age of three and 50,000 pregnant-lactating women.

More than 90 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition were admitted to the national hospital of Jalapa in August – three times higher than the same month last year – and out of the 117 children rushed to the hospital between January and July, 17 have died, WFP noted in a situation report issued last week.

In its immediate response to the food crisis in Guatemala's so-called "dry corridor," <"http://www.wfp.org/countries/guatemala">WFP has committed 20 tons of High Energy Biscuits (HEB) and 200 tons of other food supplies, including corn soy blended food, black beans and corn to complement Government rations assisting 75,000 families living in the most affected areas.

WFP will also expand a food-for-work scheme to support another 93,000 families affected by damage to the upcoming harvest and who will need assistance for around six months.

The Government has also made $7.5 million available to complete the first phase of its National Contingency Plan while calling on donors to make further donations in response to the crisis, according to WFP.

However, food shortages are likely to worsen, with a 60 to 80 per cent loss of crops expected in the upcoming harvest in some of Guatemala's provinces, which would put even more households at very high risk of becoming food insecure.

WFP noted that the annual food shortages caused by droughts in the six provinces of the "dry corridor" – Jutiapa, Santa Rosa, Zacapa, Chiquimula, El Progreso and Baja Verapaz – has been intensified by previous crop losses, low food stocks, combined with declining remittances, exports, tourism and foreign investment and rising unemployment due to the global recession.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (<"http://ochaonline.un.org/">OCHA) announced today that the country team plans to issue a flash appeal in the coming days to respond to the current humanitarian crisis in the Central American country.

UN AGENCY PROJECTS TO BOOST PRODUCTIVITY OF SMALL-SCALE FEMALE FARMERS

Poor farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America are set to receive a productivity boost through new United Nations-led agricultural projects funded by a €34 million donation from the European Union (EU), the UN World Food Programme (<"http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/eu-food-facility-grant-increase-farmers-productivity">WFP) announced today.

WFP schemes helping mostly female small-scale farmers grow food more efficiently in Bolivia, Guatemala, Senegal, Nepal and the Philippines will receive the additional spending from the EU's €1 billion Food Facility fund.

"The European Union has recognized that one of the best ways to make sure people have access to food is to help small farmers increase production," said Gemmo Lodesani, Director of the WFP liaison office in Brussels.

"That way, they can feed their families and increase availability of food on their local markets," said Mr. Lodesani, adding that more than "2 million people, many of them children and vulnerable adults, will benefit from the food generated by five WFP programmes."

These WFP projects, such as collective farming, crop diversification, and food-for-work programmes aimed at improving irrigation and flood resistance, will be coordinated with the Food and Agriculture Organization (<"http://www.fao.org/">FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (<"http://www.ifad.org/">IFAD).

LACK OF FUNDING FORCES UN FOOD AGENCY TO DOWNSIZE OPERATIONS IN DPR KOREA

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced today that it is being forced to scale back its emergency operation to reach six million hungry and vulnerable people in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) due to a severe lack of funding.

At a press briefing in the Chinese capital, Beijing, today, the agency said that of the $504 million needed for the programme, only $75 million has been received so far.

Amir Abdulla, WFP Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, said that the agency is currently reviewing the terms and conditions under which the scheme is providing food to the hungry.

"We need to make sure that any terms agreed to do not compromise our accountability," he said.

A joint report by WFP and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) released last December estimated that nearly nine million people could be hungry due to a shortage in cereals in the DPRK in 2009.

Even with commercial imports, DPRK will face a cereal deficit of over 800,000 tons, according to the FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission, the first such comprehensive mission conducted since 2004.
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PIONEERING INSURANCE POLICY GREATLY BENEFITS POOR FARMERS, FINDS UN-BACKED REPORT

The fragile livelihoods of millions of poor farmers in developing countries, often devastated by adverse weather conditions, have been fortified by an innovative insurance scheme, according to a United Nations-backed report released today.

A variable and unpredictable climate can restrict income and limit development for many smallholders, as banks, for example, are unlikely to lend to farmers if a drought will cause widespread defaults, even if the farmers could pay back loans in most years.

This lack of access to credit restricts farmers' ability to buy improved seeds, fertilizers and other inputs needed to cultivate land, according to the Index Insurance and Climate Risk: Prospects for development and disaster management report launched at the Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF) in Geneva today.

Index Insurance uses a measure of weather, such as the amount of rainfall, to determine payouts, resolving a number of problems that make traditional insurance unworkable in rural parts of developing countries, said the report.

With Index Insurance contracts, there is no need to visit the policyholder to determine premiums or assess damages. Instead, if the rainfall recorded by gauges is below an agreed-upon threshold, the insurance pays out.

Having this insurance allows farmers to apply for bank loans and other types of credit which was previously inaccessible, said the report, which was produced by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) in partnership with UN Development Programme and the World Food Programme, among other governmental and non-governmental agencies.

"Only the richest three per cent of people in the world are covered by insurance," said Olav Kjorven, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of the Bureau for Development Policy.

"The world's poor have been completely left out, even though they are the most vulnerable people most in need of protection.

"Droughts, floods and hurricanes often strip whole communities of their resources and belongings," he said, adding that Index Insurance could "finally enable millions of poor people to access financial tools for development and properly prepare for and recover from climate disasters."

A number of projects have shown that Index Insurance is affordable for people living on just $2 a day, an example being farming communities in Malawi which have been able to buy small insurance contracts to cover the purchase price of seeds in case of drought since 2005, according to the report.

Nearly two million Indian farmers have also had access to Index Insurance programmes since 2003, but in order to achieve their full potential, applications of Index Insurance will need to scale up to reach many more people, the report stressed.
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WFP BRIDGES GAP TO FEED MORE THAN 1 MILLION PEOPLE IN CENTRAL SOMALIA

WFP BRIDGES GAP TO FEED MORE THAN 1 MILLION PEOPLE IN CENTRAL SOMALIA
New York, May 27 2009 7:00PM
The United Nations World Food Programmes (WFP) has agreed to feed more than 1 million people in central Somalia, after a non-governmental organization (NGO) was forced to withdraw from the area due to security threats.

The agency will open a field office in the central Somali town of Beletweyne to provide food assistance to over 1 million people made hungry by drought, conflict and hyperinflation in the regions of Hiraan, Galgadud, Mudug and North Gedo.

WFP, which itself has had two of its employees shot to death in Somalia earlier this year, said it had signed an agreement with local elders and authorities aimed at protection for agency staff and local partners.

"There is a very large need of food assistance here," said Kathy Derore, <"http://www.wfp.org/">WFP Programme Officer, shortly after meeting elders and authorities in Beletweyne to finalize plans for the new office. "We need to be closer to the people who need our help."

Three masked gunmen shot and killed Somali national Ibrahim Hussein Duale, 44, on 6 January, while he was monitoring school feeding in a WFP-supported school near Gedo. On 8 January, three gunmen shot and killed 49-year-old Mohamud Omar Moallim, a Somali national, as he was monitoring the distribution of food to displaced people in a camp north-west of Mogadishu.

These killings brought the number of WFP staff killed in Somalia since August 2008 to four.
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EXPANDED UN FEEDING SCHEME TARGETS SCHOOLCHILDREN, MOST VULNERABLE IRAQIS

EXPANDED UN FEEDING SCHEME TARGETS SCHOOLCHILDREN, MOST VULNERABLE IRAQIS
New York, May 26 2009 11:00AM
The United Nations World Food Programme (<"http://www.wfp.org/">WFP) today announced it is expanding its food aid operation in Iraq to reach the country's most vulnerable groups and to begin providing free school lunches to children.

WFP Iraq Country Director Edward Kallon noted that the move marks a "significant transition" in the agency's efforts to assist vulnerable Iraqis, which until now was focused on those who have moved around the country to escape civil strife and lost access to government food rations.

"Now we are moving to address the needs of all the most vulnerable people in the country with problems of access to sufficient food," he <"http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/wfp-expands-iraq-operation-cover-vulnerable-groups-school-feeding">stated.

WFP's current Iraq operation began in January 2008 to supply some 750,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) with emergency food rations, as well as 362,000 displaced Iraqis in Syria.

The programme will now be extended to the end of 2009, and will provide food aid to an additional 577,000 people in Iraq, including pregnant and nursing women, malnourished children, orphans, disabled people, female-headed households and small-scale farmers in 41 food-insecure districts in 14 governorates.

The operation will now also include a new school feeding programme, under which WFP will pilot the provision of free school meals to some 170,000 primary schoolchildren in eight extremely food-insecure districts in Diala, Ninewa, Sulaymaniya and Wassit Governorates.

WFP is appealing to donors for an additional $42.7 million – of which it has so far received $16 million – to fund the expanded operation.

A food security analysis conducted last year by WFP and the Iraqi authorities found that an estimated 930,000 people were currently food insecure in Iraq, with a further 6.4 million at risk of becoming food insecure in the event of the failure of the Public Distribution System (PDS).

Mr. Kallon said the expansion of the existing operation in Iraq would pave the way for a new two-year relief and recovery operation to start next year.

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