The World Food Programme (WFP) said this week that it has begun to cut the provision of school meals to the world’s poorest children as the global crisis over food prices worsens.
Josette Sheeran, the WFP’s executive director, said the price of basic foods was rising so rapidly that a shortfall in financing for its food relief programmes had grown from $500-million to $755-million in less than two months.
About $300-million has been pledged so far by donor countries to fill the WFP’s financing gap, including $60-million offered by Britain this week to coincide with an experts’ conference on the crisis in London and €60-million from the European commission.
But the new money is too late to maintain all of the WFP’s operations. A programme providing meals for 450 000 Cambodian children has already been suspended, and Sheeran said that a similar programme in Kenya, serving 1,2-million children, is facing cuts of about 50%.
Sheeran said the cutbacks reflected ”heartbreaking decisions” forced on the WFP. ”We need all the help we can get from the governments of the world who can afford to do so,” she said.
The crisis is also being driven by rising demand from consumers in fast-developing countries such as China and India, at a time when food production is being hit by climate change.
Sheeran said the world had consumed more food than it produced for the past three years, but added that agricultural output was beginning to creep upwards in response to high prices.
Douglas Alexander, the UK International Development secretary, who chaired the Downing Street meeting, announced a $910-million aid package aimed at mitigating the immediate effects of the food price crisis and addressing the long-term causes. In that package, $60-million will go to the WFP to help fund its financing gap, $50-million is to go to Ethiopia to boost the incomes of its poorest families, while $800-million would be spent on agricultural research over five years. Oxfam’s director of policy, Phil Bloomer, who took part in the meeting, welcomed the government contribution, but said that not all the money was new. He also said that the total aid package amounted to less than the UK tax rebate on biofuels.
”The government should not only scrap its own mandatory targets but must show leadership in Europe and make sure no further targets are set there,” he said. — Julian Borger