LONDON (Reuters) – Food aid is at a 20-year low despite the number of critically hungry people soaring this year to its highest level ever, the head of the United Nations relief agency said.
Josette Sheeran, UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) executive director, said the WFP is facing its biggest ever challenge.
“The problem with the food crisis and the financial crisis is that it has silently permeated throughout the world with the world’s bottom billion (in terms of poverty) selectively hit the hardest because they’re the most vulnerable,” Sheeran said.
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The number of hungry people passed one billion this year for the first time and the WFP has barely a third of the funding it needs to feed 108 million people this year.
The WFP has confirmed $2.6 billion in funding toward its $6.7 billion budget for 2009.
It would take less than 0.01 percent of the global financial crisis bailout package to solve the hunger crisis, she said.
Sheeran took her message of the urgent need for funding to the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24-25 and to the UN General Assembly.
“We would like to see a bold vision,” she said, adding that the hunger crisis can be solved. Even last year the world produced enough food to feed everyone; the question is getting it to those who need it.
“We need a commitment that emergency needs during the next two years will be met,” Sheeran said, adding the WFP expects it will need another $6.7 billion next year to tackle the crisis.
It helps feed those deemed most desperate, about 10 percent of the total in need. The WFP will likely reach 8.5 percent of those in need this year, Sheeran said.
The WFP has had to cut rations to some of the world’s most hungry, with one in six people going hungry.
In October, the WFP is preparing to reduce rations in Kenya, where drought and high food prices have pushed almost four million more people into hunger.
The WFP’s Guatemala program, which provides food supplements to 100,000 children and 50,000 pregnant and lactating women, is “hanging by a thread,” the organization said.
In Bangladesh, the WFP reaches barely one million of the targeted five million people who can’t afford to buy food for their families.
All of the WFP’s funds are donations. Sheeran said the U.S., Canada, Australia, the UK and Europe have been champions.
“What we really need is for them to stay the course,” Sheeran said.
The U.S. has “stepped up” to boost its emergency food aid funding this year.
The U.K. put $70 million toward WFP this year, compared with $169 million in 2008.
Last year, the WFP received $5 billion in voluntary funds.
