Over 925 million people—more than the populations of the US, Canada, and the European Union combined—will not get enough to eat this year. World Food Program USA, nonprofit that generates support in the US for the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), is launching a major fund-raising campaign via mail to help underwrite its priority programs—with a pledge from TPRF to match the first $30,000 raised. Letters to the organization's donors will include information about TPRF's grant.

The objectives of the World Food Program (WFP), the food-assistance arm of the United Nations, are very much in line with TPRF's goals.

They include putting the eradication of hunger at the center of the international agenda by promoting policies, strategies, and operations that directly benefit the poor and hungry. In 2011, WFP aims to feed more than 90 million people in 73 countries. Its programs will also provide logistical support to get food to those who need it quickly and efficiently, as well as initiatives to implement long-term solutions to hunger that will help its victims become self-sufficient.

One of WFP's major programs, its Mother-and-Child Health and Nutrition Services, directly targets chronically hungry women and children. Last year, in Haiti alone this program provided nutritious food to 53,000 children under age 5 and 16,000 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, in conjunction with other health and nutritional services.

The nonprofit's HIV/AIDS programs, underway in more than 50 countries, include ongoing food assistance programs. For Anne Rono, a small farmer in western Kenya diagnosed with HIV, contributions of nutritious foods from WFP made the difference between devastation and recovery. Although she was on a regimen of anti-retroviral drugs, she said, "I was too weak to farm and couldn't do much work. I had to stop for a while, but thankfully, I was given food to eat together with the medicine, which helped me recover my strength."

WFP's intervention didn't end there. Anne's farmers' cooperative enrolled in WFP's Purchase 4 Progress program, a pilot project that trains small farmers how to raise yields and improve crop quality. Anne was able to raise the quality of her crops to meet WFP's standards. With the proceeds of the crops she sold, she was able to pay her daughter's school fees and lease an extra 1.5 acres of arable land.

One of WFP's largest operations is its global School Meals initiative, which reaches some 22 million children in 60 countries each year, including about two million young Afghans. School feeding and food aid to schoolchildren are important incentives for education in Afghanistan, which has one of the worst literacy rates in the world. In the southern province of Kandahar, where bias against educating women is particularly high, "WFP provides cooking oil to schoolgirls, and this is a critical incentive," said Najibullah Ahmadi, director of Kandahar's education department.

Through WFP, Afghan schoolchildren of both genders are given daily snacks prepared from fortified food products—another motivation for hungry families to send their children to school. Sometimes, this snack is the only food their children will eat that day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

photo credits:  Marcus Prior and Boris Heger

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