WFP calls for more funds to sustain projects

The UN food agency (WFP) has warned that insufficient funding might force it to stop or slow down many of its projects in Afghanistan. "There is a lot of goodwill that should be translated into cash and food," agency spokesman, Alejandro Chicheri told IRIN in Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Friday.

"The situation for the poor and most vulnerable will remain difficult as they have met the ends of their coping mechanisms," he said. Millions of Afghans had been displaced by the continuing drought in the region - severely threatening the country's food production with a cereal deficit of about 2.2 millions mt last year.

WFP had appealed for some US $285 million for a nine month programme to assist millions of Afghans till the end of the year. However, the agency has so far received only $63.9 million. "We still have only 37 percent of the total resources required," Chicheri said. "We need at least 50 percent resources to assist some nine million people each month before the harvest in July," he explained.

The agency provided some 370,000 mt of food to some six million Afghans, many of them displaced and dependent on food aid since the beginning of October. WFP is funding rapid impact projects to rehabilitate basic infrastructure, including rebuilding schools, irrigation systems, hospitals, roads and bridges, as well as providing emergency assistance to the people.

Iftikhar Khalid, programme manager with the British charity Islamic Relief, an implementing partner of WFP in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar told IRIN: "Many of the most vulnerable groups such as the displaced people returning to their areas of origin depend entirely on food aid for nutrition." He noted that the entire food security, in the southern region at least, depended on WFP food aid.

Khalid added that the cereal production was expected to be low this year because the local varieties of cereal crops were protein deficient.