WFP calls for urgent donor aid

WFP has called for urgent donor contributions to feed over one million Tanzanians suffering from severe food shortages. “If we don’t receive additional funds to mount this aid operation soon, we’ll see the onset of malnutrition and other hunger-related diseases which may ultimately cost human lives,” WFP’s Country Director for Tanzania, Irene Lacy, said in a statement yesterday. “The food aid we’re planning to distribute is the very minimum needed to stave off a major crisis.”

WFP needs to begin distributing food immediately to 1.14 million people living in 12 regions of the country. Over the next three months, it plans to oversee an emergency distribution of 29,000 mt of food aid, in partnership with the government and several non-governmental agencies. “Tanzania’s farmers have battled with recurring drought, torrential floods and pest infestations since 1996,” Lacy said. “The cumulative effect of these problems has meant that farmers have continually failed to harvest enough food, and now they have no more reserves left to feed their families.”