| World Food Programme (WFP) |
Head of the Agency
Name: Mr. Rasmus Egendal
Job title: Deputy Country Director
E-mail: Rasmus.Egendal@wfp.org
Global website: www.wfp.org
Agency's local website: WFP in the Kyrgyz Republic
In 2007-8, Kyrgyzstan suffered its worst winter in 40 years, with tens of thousands of people facing power blackouts and food shortages for weeks on end. Summer brought a crippling drought that dashed the farmers’ hopes for a good harvest. In response, WFP launched an Emergency Operation in January 2009. The newly established Country Office quickly mobilized resources and staff, establishing a logistics lifeline between the capital Bishkek in the north and the second-largest city of Osh in the south, and partnering with NGOs to get food to the poorest villages in remote, isolated mountain plateaux. In total, WFP gave food to 401,750 people last year under the Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF) programme.
With VGF continuing into 2010, WFP is now preparing to expand its assistance in Kyrgyzstan, with the country’s first full-fledged school feeding programme for children in primary schools (Grades 1 to 4) and food support for tuberculosis patients undergoing the DOTS treatment (along with their families). And under the UN Country Team’s “Delivering as One” joint programme, WFP will begin a US $1-million large-scale Food for Work project that will create productive, environment-friendly assets in rural areas like tree plantations, riverbank preservation and irrigation projects.
Mission Statement:
WFP is the food aid arm of the United Nations system. Food aid is one of the many instruments that can help to promote food security, which is defined as access of all people at all times to the food needed for an active and healthy life. ¹ The policies governing the use of World Food Programme food aid must be oriented towards the objective of eradicating hunger and poverty. The ultimate objective of food aid should be the elimination of the need for food aid.
Agency's major interventions (practice areas):
Vulnerable Group Feeding – WFP gives a three-month supply of wheat flour and vegetable oil to the poorest and most food-insecure families in Kyrgyzstan at the hardest times of the year for them – the pre-harvest “lean season” of April/May and the pre-winter period of November/December. WFP works with the local authorities – called ayil okrugus – to draw up a preliminary list of the most vulnerable families in the villages. WFP and NGO partners then “verify” the lists by visiting selected households to determine their economic status – how much land they have, how many livestock, what their income level is. Because so many poor households are dependent on remittance income from (mostly male) relatives working in Russia or Kazakhstan, the significant drop in remittance income in 2008 was devastating for the country’s poor, and WFP’s VGF food assistance came at just the right time.
School Feeding – WFP is laying the groundwork for a school meals programme to start in September 2010 for children in primary schools in the poorest rural areas of the country. Working in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, and the parents and teachers of each school, WFP will supply fortified wheat flour, vegetable oil, rice, pulses and iodized salt that will be used in the production of a hot, nutritious soup (supplemented with vegetables provided by the school) and bread. This meal will fill the nutrition gaps left in the current daily snack of bread and tea for school children paid for by the Kyrgyz Government.
Food for Work – Building on a pilot project in 2009, WFP is establishing partnerships with the Kyrgyz Government, donor governments and NGOs to start up work projects for rural women and men who will build the community asset their village needs the most – a drinking water source, an irrigation canal for their crops, a tree plantation to prevent soil erosion, or a bridge to shorten to increase mobility. The workers are paid in wheat flour and vegetable oil for their efforts, and their village gets a long-lasting improvement in the community infrastructure.
http://www.wfp.org/content/kyrgyzstan-winter-food-aid-response
Budget
Total Budget: n/a
Major ongoing projects: n/a
Main Agency's Partners: In Kyrgyzstan, WFP works in collaboration with the State Agency for Social Welfare, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The MoES is a close ally with WFP in responding to emergencies from the natural disasters that characterize the country and in fighting climate change on the front lines of this country often called the “Switzerland of Central Asia.”
Main Agency's Donors: n/a
Downloads (PDF): n/a
