WFP faces unprecedented funding gap

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it is facing a major funding shortfall over the next six months for its food and nutrition assistance and livelihood support activities in Ethiopia. WFP needs over USD 288 million over the next six months to feed and provide long-term food security solutions to 11.9 million people as it enters the yearly ‘hunger season,’ now exacerbated by conflict in the country’s Tigray and other regions.
The Government of Ethiopia, WFP, and other partners are struggling to contain the country’s severe food insecurity situation, due to the extended combined effects of drought, flooding, desert locust invasions, market disruptions and high food prices, and the COVID-19 pandemic, over 13.6 million people are estimated to be food insecure. A growing population of hundreds of thousands of people now internally displaced by conflict are especially vulnerable.
“During this peak season for malnutrition, maintaining food and nutrition support is critical if we are to prevent an extremely fragile situation from rapidly deteriorating further. In addition to the severe challenges facing conflict-impacted populations in many regions, we are deeply concerned about climate-related vulnerability and food insecurity in lowland areas, and also about our ability to meet the food and nutrition needs of refugees,” says WFP Representative and Country Director, Dr. Steven Were Omamo.