Food agency awaits govt’s wheat donation

ADB provides $3 million grant for flood-affected people.

ISLAMABAD:

The flood waters may be receding but the challenges faced by those left in its wake are not.

The United Nations’ food agency, World Food Program (WFP), awaits wheat donations, promised by the government of Pakistan earlier this month, to meet critical needs of millions in the upcoming months.

Available resources can last till November and if fresh funding does not come in, approximately 2.5 million people could suffer, said the official spokesperson for WFP Amjad Jamal.

“Until the next planting season, the people in flood-affected areas would rely on relief assistance,” said Jamal, adding that urgent assistance is needed to meet needs till February 2012.

According to agency officials, WFP is presently experiencing a shortfall of $109 million and while the agency has received assurances ‘at the highest level’ that the Pakistan government is prepared to provide 25,000 metric tonnes (MTs) of wheat for the flood operation, the agency still awaits confirmation of the donation.

The agency’s total storage capacity currently stands to 25,000 MTs while its daily capacity to mill and fortify wheat is 1,800 MTs. The agency catered to 1.3 million flood-affected people in October and plans to cover over 61,000 beneficiaries in Balochistan.

Sources add that government actors are scaling down their food assistance programmes and handing it over to non-governmental agencies.

Food shortage in the flood-affected areas is adding to the incidence of malnutrition and to cater to that, WFP has provided fortified high-energy biscuits to 350,000 children and ready-to-eat supplementary food, Wawa Mum, to 170,000 infants in Sindh since the start of October.

The agency has also screened more than 35,500 children and 8,400 women for acute malnutrition and is working on a programme to treat acute malnutrition amongst children and pregnant and lactating women.

ADB provides $3 million

The Asian Development Bank provided a $3 million grant to Pakistan on Thursday, for the flood-affected people in Sindh and Balochistan. The emergency assistance from the bank’s Asia Pacific Disaster Response Fund aims to help the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) ensure provision of food, drinking water, medicines and tents for the displaced people at the onset of winter, according to a press release issued here.

“We hope that the grant will increase NDMA’s ability to reach out to poor and the most vulnerable groups particularly women and children facing a desperate situation,” said ADB’s Country Director for Pakistan Dr Werner Liepach, after signing the agreement with Secretary Economic Affairs Division Abdul Wajid Rana.

Earlier this year, ADB provided a $650 million loan to Pakistan for reconstruction of vital infrastructure damaged by last year’s devastating floods.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2011.