Lack Of Funding Threatens Food Aid Programme In War-Stricken Angola

GENEVA - The United Nations World Food Programme warned today that its
efforts to assist more than 700,000 Angolans - mostly young children and
returning refugees - will come to a halt unless new donations are received
by the end of July.


WFP needs at least US$12.6 million to distribute 7,700 metric tons of food
aid to targeted Angolan beneficiaries for the remainder of 2006. Donor
support for the agency's relief programme has diminished alarmingly since
last year.


"The situation has deteriorated to the extent that we will not be able to
distribute food from next month, and will have to close down our operation
entirely in September unless new contributions are received very soon",
said Sonsoles Ruedas, who is in charge of WFP's operation in the country.


A WFP study conducted late last year in rural areas of southern and eastern
Angola indicated that more than 900,000 people still do not get enough
food, and that at least 45 percent of children under the age of five are
chronically malnourished - a condition that can irreversibly impair
learning ability.


Angola endured nearly 30 years of civil war, causing immense damage to
infrastructure and social services. Health-care and educational facilities
are still non-existent in many areas. Millions of land mines litter the
country.


WFP launched a new food aid programme in April, aimed at alleviating the
suffering of the poorest and thereby supporting post-war reconstruction.. It
plans to assist more than 700,000 children in primary schools, pregnant and
nursing women, and HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and pellagra sufferers.


The operation is also designed to support more than 80,000 refugees
expected to return home from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and
Zambia. "WFP has assumed the responsibility of trying to ensure that the
refugees - who are coming back empty-handed after many years of exile - get
enough food before their first harvest," Ruedas said. "But we've had to
distribute half-rations to such people since last year."


WFP currently provides school meals to 220,000 Angolan children, and is
planning to increase the caseload by 100,000 by the end of the year - if
funding becomes available. The agency is also helping to design a national
school-feeding programme to be fully funded and implemented by the Ministry
of Education.


The Government of Angola is committed to providing US $1.3 million towards
school-feeding in 2006, and may give more in 2007 and 2008.


The plan calls for the government to launch its own programme next year in
areas where WFP is not already providing school-feeding, and to eventually
provide food for all schools in the country.


Donors to WFP's three-year (April 2006-March 2009) Protracted Relief and
Recovery Operation for Angola, which seeks to mobilise 110,000 metric tons
of commodities valued at US$89.8 million: Angola (US$1.9m), Canada
(US$438,596), France (US$3.6m), Ireland (US$55,910), Italy (US$318,530),
Portugal (US$117,648), USA (US$3.5m), Private donors (US$182,051) and
multilateral (US$1.1m)


WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency: each year, we give food to
an average of 90 million poor people to meet their nutritional needs,
including 58 million hungry children, in at least 80 of the world's poorest
countries. WFP -- We Feed People.


WFP Global School Feeding Campaign - For just 19 US cents a day, you can
help WFP give children in poor countries a healthy meal at school - a gift
of hope for a brighter future.


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