UN agency appeals for urgent funds to feed 3.5 million hungry Afghans

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today called on international donors to provide urgently needed funds to ensure food aid to 3.5 million hungry Afghans, warning that there will be a break in food supplies this month without fresh donations.

“Our lack of funding has left us almost no choice and food rations and activities will have to be cut if we do not receive fresh donations,” WFP country representative Charles Vincent said of the agency’s need for 52,000 metric tons of food worth about $40 million for its current operations until December. “We desperately need donors’ help.”

Unless there are new donations, many poor and hungry schoolchildren who receive take-home rations of food as an incentive to attend school will not get their rations, he added noting that WFP is working in some of the most remote and inaccessible locations in the world in Afghanistan, and it can take four to seven months to translate a donor’s pledge into food on the ground.

“Given the escalation in needs across the world, donors are understandably stretched. But if the impending ration cuts continue, we may see not only increasing malnutrition rates, but also insecurity and possible displacement to urban centres,” Mr. Vincent warned.

A recently completed national food security and vulnerability assessment by the Government revealed a worrying picture of poor dietary diversity, poverty, debt and widespread food insecurity. Despite a predicted good harvest in the north, Afghanistan is expected to face a deficit of at least 400,000 tons of cereals this year.

Most farmers in Afghanistan do not harvest enough food to meet their consumption needs for an entire year, and many sell their assets to acquire capital or borrow against the following year’s crop, putting them into a vicious cycle of debt. Some even sell their daughters to wipe off debts.

Poor food consumption with little variety in diet is likely to increase malnutrition and degenerative diseases among the most vulnerable, especially young children.