WFP calls for help to meet shortfall in food aid

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has called for urgent assistance from donors to cover an expected shortfall in food aid by September for refugees and displaced people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. WFP’s regional director for West Africa, Arnold Vercken, said on Wednesday that assessments by the agency showed an extra 17,000 mt of food with an estimated value of US $10 million was required to meet the needs of current beneficiaries of its programme in the three countries up to the end of the year. “We might have some gaps in the supply of certain commodities from September, which is very close, so we want to draw the attention of our donors to ensure that our pipeline is replenished,” Vercken told IRIN in an interview. WFP said nearly one million people, including refugees, displaced persons and vulnerable groups, were currently benefitting from its food programmes in the three countries: 150,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) and more than 200,000 other beneficiaries in Sierra Leone; 130,000 refugees and 190,000 IDPs in Guinea; and 145,000 needy people in Liberia, most of them IDPs. According to Vercken, the most urgent problems are in Sierra Leone, not only in terms of numbers but also because of a steady flow of “people on the move”. He said with improving stability in the country, many people who had fled Sierra Leone would continue to return. “That’s where we’re concentrating our effort to strengthen our own assistance capacity,” he said. “Most of the food aid needs mentioned will be directed at Sierra Leone.” This is because people on the move are usually the most vulnerable, Vercken explained, since, unlike refugees and displaced people who may have access to a vegetable garden or even a farm, they are unable to grow food. Refugees relocating from the Parrot’s Beak area of Guinea to new, safer camps further inland as well as people displaced by fighting in Lofa County, northern Liberia, also require urgent action, the WFP regional director said. He said the decision to alert donors now to the situation in the Manu River Union countries was taken with the awareness that their response mechanisms needed time to be activated so that resources can be mobilised in time to meet anticipated needs. “I think that despite the fact that this region has been the theatre of displacement, of war and instability for years, it should not trigger donor fatigue,” Vercken said. “Donors should continue to support us in our mandate to relieve the suffering of these poor people who have really had hard times for these past 10 years.”