WATANI International
6 September 2009
Since the World Food Programme (WFP) was launched in 1963 it has helped in the development of most cultivable parts of Egypt, pouring in USD681 million dollars’ worth of aid and supporting thousands to achieve self-sufficiency in food production. The current programme, which started in 2007 and is due to run until 2011, will benefit nearly 400,000 individuals and provide USD44 million in aid.
Upper Egypt is among the poorest regions, with 32.2 per cent living under the poverty line. The programme mainly helps deprived people in Upper Egypt, Sinai and the Red Sea provinces, focusing on women and children.
Watani talked to the WFP regional director Gian Pietro Bordignon who willingly answered all our questions and elucidated countless facts about the WFP.
For the benefit of the poor
The WFP started in premises in Rome in 1963. Its aim was to struggle against hunger, support economic and social development, and give help in emergency incidents worldwide. The programme’s target was to put an end to the hunger and poverty that kill 25,000 people in the world every day.
The WFP, Mr Bordignon stressed, attempts to keep hunger at the top of the list of critical international issues needing quick and practical solutions. It also encourages and applies policies that directly benefit the poor.
The programme has given help to survivors of drought and food shortages in Afghanistan and Ethiopia, and to flood victims in Haiti. It also helps those obliged to leave their homes such as has happened in Sudan, and Sierra Leone, as well as victims of economic crises.
Mostly, Mr Bordignon explained, the WFP helps countries of the third world, including the southern desert areas of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia.
Food for work…and children
According to Mr Bordignon, the aid programme is cooperating with governments and NGOs to implement nutrition projects in schools in developing countries. It also helps guarantee that children continue at school, especially girls. It applies ‘Food for Work’ and ‘Food for Training’ systems to help men and women acquire the necessary qualifications that give them the chance to start a new life.
The WFP is also helping the Egyptian government to implement a project to fortify bread flour with iron and folic acid to curb the rising rate of iron-deficiency anaemia. The project, Mr Bordignon said, will phase out its role after three years, when the government is able to continue implementing the programme.
‘School Meals’ supports Egypt’s existing school-feeding programme in addition to providing food aid to students in some of the poorest areas to encourage enrolment and attendance rates, especially of girls, weak students and street children. In September 2006 the WFP launched a project to support Egypt’s goal to expand early childhood education from 13 per cent of the population to 60 per cent by 2010. The WFP is providing daily snacks to over half a million pre-school children.
Mr Bordignon explained that the WFP also aims to take out children from the labour market in Assiut, Sohag, Beni Sueif and the Red Sea governorate. In 2006 it launched a programme with the International Labour Organisation and UNICEF to withdraw and prevent 10,300 children from entering the labour market in the three governorates in Upper Egypt and the Red Sea.
The programme, he said, focuses on women who benefit from land ownership and micro-credit schemes to purchase stock for life and start small businesses.
Partners
On behalf of the government, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation is the coordinating partner of the WFP in Egypt. The Ministry of International Cooperation coordinates between the programme and the governmental authorities. The cooperation extends to other ministries such as the Ministry of Education—to implement new plans on early childhood such as school meals; the Ministry of Social Solidarity to support the flour, iron and folic acid project and to reform a food subsidisation project; the Ministry of Manpower to help working children; the Ministry of Housing to help the Bedouin of Sinai; and the Health Ministry.
The WFP executive board is composed of 36 member states of the United Nations and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The board oversees the WFP’s humanitarian and food aid activities. The executive manager in Rome is selected by the UN secretary-general and the general manager of FAO.
Mr Bordignon ended his talk by stressing that the programme is there to help displaced persons, refugees, the poor, drought survivors, and those who escape from conflict and disaster areas. The WFP uses its food donations to conquer poverty through helping, training, and developing projects for the poor, to guarantee them a better future.