WFP Announces 4 Year Plan To Battle Global Food Crisis

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The World Food Programme (WFP) will launch a new four-year strategic plan that will be critical to addressing soaring hunger needs due to the global food crisis.

“This strategic plan marks a revolution in food aid that supports local markets in breaking the cycle of hunger,” said Josette Sheeran, WFP’s Executive Director, at the conclusion of WFP’s four-day Executive Board. “This is not your grandmother’s food aid, and just in time.”

“I call this our 80-80-80 solution,” Sheeran said.

“Eighty percent of our cash for food is spent in the developing world, 80 percent of our ground transport is procured in the developing world, and 80 percent of our staff is hired locally in the developing world.”

WFP presently spends more than US$2 billion on food, transport and staff in the developing world.

The four year plan emphasizes life-saving emergency aid, such as the 3 million vulnerable served in Darfur with emergency food aid. It also emphasizes prevention, local purchase of food, and using targeted cash and voucher programs when food is available locally but not accessible by the hungry.

The tools that are set out in the plan include early warning systems and vulnerability analysis, as well as preparedness and disaster reduction/mitigation, while ensuring fast and effective emergency response in life-saving situations.

Identifying the hungry poor, and the best set of interventions to assist them, is key as is helping communities understand and anticipate shocks, including those spurred by climate change.

WFP plans to use its purchasing power to create a positive spill-over effect to bolster economic and market development, and to strengthen smallholder farming, local transport and communication networks. Last year, WFP used its cash resources to purchase US$612 million of food in 69 developing countries.

Tools, that are designed to break the inter-generational cycle of chronic hunger, which is the inheritance of hunger from mother to child, are also a critical part of the plan. School meals and support to mother-and-child health and nutrition (MCHN) programmes will help address poor levels of education and health that hamper the physical and intellectual growth of individuals, and constrain the economic and social development of nations.