WFP in Sudan receives $86 million from USAID

10/09/2015 10:34

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) donated cash and items worth a total $86 million dollar to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), to support people in Darfur, North Kordofan and West Kordofan states.

The contribution of mixed food items is worth $75 million and are meant to meet the food needs of more than 2 million people, including displaced people, school children, and vulnerable households in Darfur and central and eastern Sudan, for up to five months. The WFP will include the food donation of sorghum, lentils and oil in food rations to almost 100,000 South Sudanese hosted in camps in Sudan’s White Nile state.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) donated cash and items worth a total $86 million dollar to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), to support people in Darfur, North Kordofan and West Kordofan states.

The contribution of mixed food items is worth $75 million and are meant to meet the food needs of more than 2 million people, including displaced people, school children, and vulnerable households in Darfur and central and eastern Sudan, for up to five months. The WFP will include the food donation of sorghum, lentils and oil in food rations to almost 100,000 South Sudanese hosted in camps in Sudan’s White Nile state.

In a press release on Monday, the WFP states that the complementary cash contribution of $11 million will allow the food programme to provide cash and vouchers assistance to almost half a million people across Darfur, for up to four months.

Part of the funds will also be used to buy specialised nutritious foods for the prevention of malnutrition among 37,000 displaced children and pregnant and nursing mothers across the three states.

The United States contribute up to 45 percent of the aid organisation’s operational requirements in the country, the statement read.

Meanwhile the WFP has switched to a recovery operation programme, after eight years of working as an emergency operation programme in Sudan. The new programme will last from July 2015 to June 2017. Overall requirements for the new programme stand at $693 million, a monthly humanitarian news bulletin reported.

Last week, the organisation raised the issue of the possible closure of the UN Humanitarian Air Service in Sudan, owing to a lack of funds. Without $9.9 million in financial support, it will have to close down by the end of this month, a spokesman said. The programme’s ability to deliver food assistance to millions of people in the region, as well as to provide the air transportation that enables aid workers to reach them, could be seriously compromised, she said.