WFP representative takes up post

The new UN World Food Programme (WFP) Representative and Country Director for Kenya, Tesema Negash, on Tuesday presented his credentials to the Kenyan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christopher Mogere Obure, and thanked the government for its support to WFP’s humanitarian and development activities in the region. Since the start of the drought emergency in February last year, the Kenyan government has donated more than 100,000 mt food from its own resources, thereby strongly supporting a unified pipeline of relief food for the drought response, which has seen WFP provide more than 670,000 mt of drought food aid assistance in the last one and a half years, WFP stated in a press release.

Obure assured WFP of the Kenyan government’s support, including the use of Lokichoggio - in the northwest - for air and relief operations into southern Sudan, and the continued availability of Mombasa Port as the key entry point and supply route for WFP humanitarian food aid arrivals in the sub-region, including the Great Lakes, southern Sudan and eastern DRC.

Negash arrived in Kenya on Monday, 27 August, to replace Holdbrook Arthur, who has moved to Cameroon as WFP’s Regional Director for Central Africa.
WFP Kenya currently provides humanitarian drought assistance to 3.1 million people, including 1.8 million drought-affected people and 1.3 million students in arid and semi-arid areas through its school-feeding programme. WFP also feeds 210,000 refugees, mainly from Somalia and Sudan. Kenya is also host to WFP’s Country Office for Somalia, where drought is affecting an estimated half a million people.