Top UN food official calls on Myanmar to do more to help its hungry millions
With one out of every three young children in Myanmar chronically malnourished or physically stunted, and 15 per cent of the population of 53 million food-insecure, a senior United Nations official today called on the Government to reform policies impeding humanitarian efforts, including controls on food distribution and access to the most vulnerable.
With one out of every three young children in Myanmar chronically malnourished or physically stunted, and 15 per cent of the population of 53 million food-insecure, a senior United Nations official today called on the Government to reform policies impeding humanitarian efforts, including controls on food distribution and access to the most vulnerable.
“Myanmar’s severe and wide-ranging hunger issues cannot be solved without fundamental changes that promote the socio-economic well-being of the population, which is the preserve of the government,” UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director James Morris said in Bangkok after a four-day visit to the south Asian country.
“The humanitarian issues are serious, and getting worse. I made very clear that the primary responsibility for making things better rests squarely with the government,” Mr. Morris added. During his visit he toured WFP hunger alleviation projects in central Magway Division and met with Prime Minister Soe Win, representatives of the opposition National League for Democracy and leaders of minority ethnic groups.
He called for a significant relaxation of controls on the procurement and distribution of food commodities, including aid, and on access to them for the most vulnerable, not least in hard-hit, ethnic minority border areas. “Current agricultural and marketing policies, and restrictions on the movement of people, make it very difficult for many of those at risk to merely subsist,” he said.
He urged the world community to step up support for the country’s hungry poor. Midway through a two-year programme to support returnees and other vulnerable groups in North Rakhine State and Magway, WFP still needs to raise 40 per cent of the projected $12 million cost. Just 20 per cent of the $8 million needed for a 12-month operation to feed former opium poppy growers and their families in Shan State has been secured.
WFP seeks to assist 760,000 of Myanmar’s most vulnerable, including poverty-stricken returned refugees from neigbouring Bangladesh, former opium poppy growers and an expanding population of HIV/AIDS sufferers. It feeds 220,000 primary school children, dramatically increasing enrolment and attendance rates.
Mr. Morris said he was deeply saddened by the suffering he saw, including that of a 31-year old mother of two in Magway whose husband had died of AIDS. “She had so little, and was desperately worried about what would happen to her children,” he noted.
“The ability to provide assistance when and where it is required and to assess needs are key humanitarian principles, and they need to be supported in Myanmar,” he said. “All those seeking to help, locals as well as foreigners, must be assured the freedoms and security they require to work effectively.”