WFP drought assistance

WFP announced on Wednesday that it had approved an emergency drought relief operation for Namibia worth an estimated US $983,000. In a statement to the IRIN office in Johannesburg, it said the assistance would include prepared meals for 10,000 children under the age of six at kindergartens and primary schools in drought-affected areas; school meals for a further 5,000 primary school children, and food-for-work rations for 10,000 adults and their dependants as part of a joint UN poverty reduction programme in the Onhangwena district bordering Angola. “This emergency intervention aims to assist the government of Namibia protect some of the most vulnerable members of the population from hunger and malnutrition in rural areas affected by drought,” it said. The drought, it explained, was associated with the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climatic events. The food aid would be distributed with the help of the government. WFP said both Namibia and southern Angola had been affected by drought in the early months of 1998 which had wiped out crops and left many rural households without means of subsistence. Drought victims in southern Angola, it added, would receive assistance under a separate programme.