Funding sought for aid programmes

The Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Catherine Bertini, called on the international community on Tuesday to keep sight of the Central Africa region's "severely underfunded long-term development programmes", the agency reported.

At in Yaounde, Cameroon, at the opening of the agency's new regional bureau for Central Africa, she said although donors had given generously to victims of war and natural disaster in the region, half the area's long-term development projects had received "little funding [if] at all".

That followed a trend in recent years in which WFP's resources for global development programmes had declined with funds almost halved since 1996, and at an all-time low of US $243 million in 2001, she said. The lack of project financing, she added, posed a particular challenge to programmes in Central Africa, inasmuch as three of the seven countries that running development them had received less than 50 percent of the funds they needed.

"WFP's development programmes are essential to haul people out of the cycle of hunger and poverty, giving them a chance to build for their future," she said. "If we help families invest in their future and become more secure in their food needs, they will be able to cope better when disaster strikes."

She said the new regional bureau would be known as Operations Division Yaounde, and would enable WFP put its strategic resources - such as key personnel and decision-making powers - closer to the millions who need food aid. The bureau would help fight poverty and hunger in Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of Congo, Ghana and Sao Tome e Principe.