WFP ambassador calls for more aid

The first Arab woman goodwill ambassador for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Her Royal Highness Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, has called on donors to continue supporting food aid projects in Ethiopia. Princess Haya from the United Arab Emirates, who visited East Shoa in central Ethiopia on Saturday, said the people she met needed food aid and other assistance to survive crises and build a better future. "These people are proud people and don't want to live on handouts. It is heartbreaking to see that they are having to rely on our compassion. It is even more heartbreaking that we don't have more of it. Hunger is the very worst companion to live with," she said. "It is possible and feasible to break the circle of poverty, but it is only a matter of making it a priority to the rest of the world," the ambassador added. She also travelled to WFP projects in Adama district in Oromiya, which are aimed at combating land degradation. A statement from WFP said men and women in Oromiya were building dams and canals, planting trees and seedlings and re-terracing mountain slopes in exchange for food. The princess also met beneficiaries of a project where WFP food is used as an incentive for trained volunteers to provide home-based care to people living with HIV/AIDS and their families. "HIV/AIDS compounds the existing high levels of poverty and food insecurity for people already struggling to survive in Ethiopia," said Mohamed Diab, WFP's representative and country director in Ethiopia, who accompanied the princess on her visit. "But when chronically sick patients, orphans, HIV-positive pregnant and breast-feeding women and people living with HIV/AIDS are provided with food, nutritional information and support from trained care-givers from within their own communities, their quality of life can improve markedly," Diab added. Despite a generally good harvest at the end of 2005, some 2.6 million people in Ethiopia will still require emergency assistance in 2006, according to WFP. The majority of these people are in drought-hit southern Ethiopia.