The charity Save the Children has likewise started a relief fund for West Africa, urging the world to respond before mass famine takes hold. Save the Children warns, “The greatest tragedy is that the world sees disasters such as this coming but fails to prevent them.”

Map of the Sahel region of West Africa. Shaded areas can quickly descend into famine if humanitarian aid does not arrive. (map courtesy USAID Famine Early Warning System)

Individuals can donate to these funds and help save lives in the eight Sahel countries which have suffered a massive drought: Niger, The Gambia, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Chad, and Cameroon.

Mothers and their babies wait in line in a maternal health care centre in Niamey, Niger, where WFP provides supplementary feeding for moderately malnourished children under three years of age. (WFP/Rein Skellerud)

Niamey, Niger, maternal health care center: a child eats his ration of Supplementary Plumpy – a nutritious peanut-based product packed with vitamins, minerals, and milk proteins. If children receive this food, they will survive the crisis. Aid agencies are low on funding to provide the food. (WFP/Rein Skellerud)

Already children in West Africa have perished from malnutrition. The World Food Programme has warned for months that the hunger crisis in West Africa could reach epic proportions during the summer. WFP says, “Malnutrition rates, particularly affecting children under two, are generally high in the Sahel, and usually rise during the lean season, leading to significant peaks in acute malnutrition and mortality.”

The lean season, or period between harvests, runs through September. Severe drought, though, has drastically reduced the amount of food farmers can produce, leading to shortages and high prices for any available supply. Conflict in Northern Mali has created a refugee crisis which is adding to the disaster in the region.WFP is pleading for funds as it plans to feed over nine million people in the Sahel. The smallest children are most at risk because they need nutrients at this early age or they will suffer lasting physical and mental damage. When the malnutrition reaches its severest, children will die, as is already happening in the Sahel.

Special foods like plumpy’nut can save children’s lives, but low funding for humanitarian aid often prevents enough supplies from being deployed quickly enough into the field. If the world would act faster, and more consistently, famines could be prevented.

Country Director Vitoria Ginja speaking to a beneficiary at Janjanbureh distribution point in the Central River Region, The Gambia. (WFP photo)

Last year the world waited too long before responding to the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa. Massive drought struck Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, but it was not until summer was well underway that the world’s attention shifted significantly to the disaster.

Save the Children says, “Early signs of an oncoming food crisis were clear many months before the Horn of Africa emergency reached its peak. Yet it was not until the situation had reached crisis point that the international system started to respond at scale.”

This year a similar tragedy awaits West Africa unless the world responds now.

You can donate to the relief funds at the World Food Programme and Save the Children.

See a series of articles on the Sahel Food Crisis.

A severe drought has ruined food supplies in this part of West Africa, which includes Niger, Mauritania, Mali, and five other countries. Conflict in Mali has created a refugee crisis; small children have already starved to death as a result of the food shortages. Aid agencies do not have enough resources to defeat the famine.

West Africa Faces Food Crisis (Australian Broadcasting Corporation video)

How can someone help? Do exactly what General John J. Pershing did after World War I. That war, in which he commanded American forces, produced a massive food shortage that threatened millions with starvation in Europe and other areas. Pershing co-hosted a fundraising dinner along with Herbert Hoover who ran American relief efforts during and after the war.

A chair was placed at the table signifying an “invisible guest,” one of the hungry and suffering. Funds were collected at the dinners through the cost of the plate and also additional contributions. The money funded the work of the American Relief Administration overseas, the agency that led the fight against the other enemy of the World War I- Hunger.

Today, Memorial Day offers an opportunity for people to have their own “invisible guest” event. If it leads to a donation of even the cost of one Memorial Day cookout meal, it can save a life.

The director of the UN World Food Programme, Ertharin Cousin, says, “Time is not on our side. If no new food or cash contributions are received immediately, the resulting inability to pre-position and distribute enough food at the peak of the lean season, from June to September, would be catastrophic for the most vulnerable, food insecure people – especially women and children.”

Children being screened for their nutrition status at a supplementary feeding centre in Mauritania. (WFP/Jacqueline Seeley)

The UN World Food Programme has started a relief fund where people can donate to the Sahel relief effort. Save the Children also has its own Sahel relief fund. Both offer great opportunities to feed an “invisible guest” this Memorial Day.

If the donations come in, children will be saved from starvation in the Sahel region of Africa.(WFP/Rein Skullerud)

Article first published as This Memorial Day You Can Save a Life In Famine-Threatened West Africa on Blogcritics.

Children are suffering from life-threatening malnutrition in Niger. Many will lose their lives unless the world responds. (Save the Children UK photo.)

Iris Gabriel, who once aspired to be an actress, played her most important role as a humanitarian. She proposed an idea to Massachusetts Governor Robert Bradford for Thanksgiving of 1947. Why not ask everyone hosting a Thanksgiving dinner to take in a “silent guest,” one of the world’s starving people?

People would then send a donation to feed the silent guest. The plan took off, with Bradford’s support, and it led to the purchase of thousands of CARE packages forwarded to the hungry in Europe. The program continued well past Thanksgiving too.

Today, the “silent guest” heroics are needed again as famine threatens. Children are starving to death in Niger and other countries in the Sahel region of West Africa. Severe drought and conflict have led to food shortages. If we respond now, we can save many lives. But aid agencies are lacking funding and the world is slow to turn its attention to this crisis.

If everyone will take the initiative, we can stop the tragedy. I just made a “silent guest” donation to Save the Children’s West Africa relief fund. If everyone did this at their next meal, it could help Save the Children’s relief work in Niger and the other Sahel countries.

Do not wait for the G8 to take action. Show them how to take action. Tonight at dinner imagine having one of the children in Niger as your guest. You could change a life by making a silent guest donation. Even a few dollars can buy a number of servings of the life-saving food Plumpy’nut.

Read this article by Annie Bodmer-Roy of Save the Children as she tell us about the tragedy taking place in Niger.

The Silent Guest reminds us of what is the right thing to do for humanity and building lasting peace. I think Americans can respond like this again and save lives.

You can help Save the Children’s West Africa Emergency Fund.

Article first published as Famine in Niger: Silent Guest Donations Needed to Feed Starving Children on Blogcritics.

On May 17, 1946 Herbert Hoover addressed the nation as famine threatened to strike the countries devastated by World War II. Hoover had been appointed as a “food ambassador” by Harry Truman. Hoover set out to coordinate the global response and millions of lives were saved by this effort. As Hoover put it, the  world had to come together to master the famine.

Herbert Hoover (far right) served as food ambassador under President Truman (center).  Hoover, Truman and General Dwight Eisenhower (far left) made multiple speeches about fighting hunger after World War II in order to win the peace. (Truman Library photo)

The citizens of America responded, sending CARE packages and even having trains cross the country collecting food for the hungry. The recovery program for Europe after the war, known as the Marshall Plan, was built on a foundation of food and nutrition.

We face a new hunger crisis today, as conflict in Sudan, East Africa, the Sahel region of Africa, Yemen, and Afghanistan has escalated the ranks of the hungry. Also, drought has descended in many of these areas which has ruined food production. Children are dying from malnutrition.  Right now aid agencies lack the funding to keep up with the crisis.

The UN World Food Programme said earlier this month that 364 million dollars is needed right away to fight hunger in the Sahel. UNICEF Yemen is only 32 percent funded for this year for its relief work. The World Food Programme in South Sudan is short $132 million dollars for relief work.

Peace in these countries depends on whether there is enough food supply and nutrition, especially for the smallest children. If enough funding is provided, millions of children in these countries could be spared death or damaging malnutrition.

Peace is advanced if we save the children. This we know. Still, history gives hope that the world can respond to the threat of famine today. On this day in history the Greatest Generation was focused on defeating the last enemy of World War II: Hunger.

Listen to Herbert Hoover address the nation on May 17,1946 about the famine after World War II.

Read more about President Obama’s speech on global hunger at the Global Agriculture and Food Security Symposium on May 18th.

Article first published as This Day in History in the Fight Against Global Hunger on Blogcritics.

Food aid is desperately needed by refugees from the conflict in Mali. While some refugees were able to bring a few animals with them, most of the camp’s inhabitants were forced to leave their livestock at home in Mali. (WFP/Jacqueline Seeley)

With hunger emergencies ongoing in the Sahel region of Africa, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan and other countries, President Barack Obama faces one of his most daunting foreign policy challenges. The President will be making a speech about the global hunger crisis this Friday, May 18th, at the Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security in Washington D.C.

Obama’s speech will be pivotal in rallying support to fight off famine on multiple fronts. In the Sahel region of Africa massive drought and a conflict in Northern Mali have placed over 16 million people at risk of starvation. The Sahel hunger crisis, which impacts Niger, Mauritania, Mali, and at least five other nations, is expected to peak this summer. Aid agencies are short on funding to meet the challenge. Annie Bodmer-Roy, of Save the Children, posted on Twitter today about the tragedy aid workers are witnessing in Niger: “Hear[t]breaking news this aft: 7mnth-old boy I met yesterday, badly malnourished, did not make it through the day. We need to stop this.”

The UN World Food Programme’s director Ertharin Cousin and UNHCR director Antonio Guterres said in a joint statement, “The window of opportunity to save lives is narrowing by the day. Today we appeal to the international community on behalf of the most vulnerable people in Niger and Sahelian countries. The time to act is now.”

The Sahel though is not the only area in crisis. East Africa is still recovering from last year’s drought and famine.

In Sudan, as conflict escalates so does hunger. Farmers have been forced away from their land. Drought also has hit, leveling another blow at food production. As peace efforts go forward by the U.S. and allies, so too must humanitarian aid to the displaced. There must be a special effort at food for malnourished children under five years of age, and also feeding programs for school age children.

In Afghanistan, hunger and malnutrition have severely damaged hopes for peace and development within the country. Low funding for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has limited its ability to carry out hunger relief missions. The UN agency is warning that funding shortages will mean more cuts to programs helping the hungry. Even school feeding programs of high energy biscuits and take-home rations will face cuts again as they did last year unless support comes from the international community.

Yemen, a country high on the U.S. national security priorities, is deeply mired in hunger and malnutrition. The World Food Programme says that 22 percent of the population suffers from severe hunger.

A report from the UN says, there are almost one million children under the age of five in Yemen who are estimated to suffer from acute malnutrition, with 267,000 children at risk of dying without food aid. Children who suffer from malnutrition in the first years of life suffer lasting physical and mental damage. The key is to intervene quickly.

About 60 percent of Yemen’s children suffer from stunting. Child malnutrition in parts of Yemen rivals that of famine-ravaged Somalia. The United Nations says that the humanitarian response plan in Yemen remains $265 million dollars underfunded.

The challenge facing President Obama, as was the case with some of his predecessors, is to rally support for fighting global hunger, an issue often off the radar of politicians and media.

President Harry Truman was able to do so after World War II when hunger threatened the recovery of the World War II devastated countries. Truman worked closely with former President Herbert Hoover to build support at home and abroad. Dwight Eisenhower was also among those speaking out of the need for fighting hunger in order to win the peace. When Eisenhower later became president he started the Food for Peace program which today needs a funding boost to meet the growing humanitarian challenge.

Food for Peace is the primary tool of the US when it comes to fighting global hunger. The program makes donations to countries suffering from hunger. For instance Food for Peace donations came to the aid of East Africa last year when a severe drought hit. The World Food Programme, Catholic Relief Services and other organizations distribute the food.

The Food for Peace program though is only as strong as how much funding Congress allows when it makes the foreign policy budget. The funding range right now for Food for Peace is around $1.5 billion dollars a year, whereas the annual cost to the nuclear weapons program is at least $52 billion dollars a year.

Today, there clearly is a need to boost the funding for Food for Peace and other aid programs given the size of the humanitarian disaster facing the globe. Increased emphasis to Food for Peace may be starting to take hold. So far this year U.S. Food for Peace donations to Yemen have increased over 2011. The most recent US Food for Peace donations totaling $47 million dollars will help feed Yemenis displaced by the ongoing conflict.

President Obama’s focus needs to be on the ongoing humanitarian emergencies and also how to prevent them from recurring. This means peace efforts to end the conflicts causing so much hunger and displacement, and food aid to reinforce the peace. The key is to build up food production in impoverished countries. Increasing the resilience of the small farmer to drought, will be a key topic of discussion at the symposium along with how the governments and business leaders can work together to make this happen.

Article first published as President Obama to Make Speech About Global Hunger Crisis on Blogcritics.

The charity Feeding America says the Stamp Out Hunger Drive is the largest single food drive in the country. The event provides a significant boost to Feeding America’s network of emergency foodbanks across the country.

Sarah Cook of the Cincinnati Freestore Foodbank says that last year Stamp Out Hunger donations produced enough food for 80,000 meals provided to the area’s hungry. Denise Gibson of the Ozarks Food Harvest said 131,000 pounds of food were donated by citizens of Southwest Missouri via Stamp Out Hunger.

Terry Shannon, the President of the St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance in Arizona says Stamp Out Hunger raises “Between 350,000 and 400,000 pounds (of food). It is the largest one day food drive for the food bank.” St. Mary’s provides aid throughout Arizona including supporting summer feeding for children in Maricopa County. The agency also assists Apache County, which has a 28% food insecurity rate, one of the highest in the country.

Dan Getman of the Food Bank of South Jersey said the event last year produced 119,550 pounds for their agency to distribute. Getman adds that Campbell’s Soup is sending out collection bags to homes in South Jersey to encourage donations.

Foodbanks all across the country need help as there are nearly 49 million people suffering from hunger.

The collection of canned goods can provide some quick relief especially at a time of the year when donations are generally down as compared to the holidays.

There is one extra thing Americans can do via the Stamp Out Hunger Drive. You could send a letter or an e-mail this Saturday to your representative in Congress asking them to fight hunger. You can remind them of the need to support the nation’s foodbanks as you will be doing on Stamp Out Hunger Day.

Nora Balduff of the Second Harvest Foodbanks of Ohio says Stamp Out Hunger “comes at a lean time of year for emergency food relief, after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.” The Mid-Ohio Foodbank, West Ohio Foodbank, Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, The Foodbank, Inc. (Dayton), and The Shared Harvest Foodbank (Fairfield) all benefit from Stamp Out Hunger.

Balduff adds that the event “also comes at a time when one of our federal partners in hunger relief, the U.S. House of Representatives, could vote on May 10th to cut SNAP/food stamp benefits by an average of $57.00 for a family of four by September 2012 (H.R. 4666)…Caring Ohioans do their part to end hunger, we need our federal partners to do the same.”

You can also ask your representative to take steps to improve the nation’s school feeding program, particularly during the summer months when many hungry children are not able to access school meals.

Ask your representative to pledge to fight hunger in America and also abroad where children are starving in Africa, Afghanistan, Yemen and other areas. Your elected officials can follow a tradition of Truman, Eisenhower and other leaders who supported ending hunger.

So this Saturday’s Stamp Out Hunger Drive can be a great success. By donating canned goods you can provide quick relief to our nation’s foodbanks as they struggle to keep up with the growing hunger crisis in America. Via a simple letter you can ask your elected officials in Congress to represent you and your desire to end hunger in America and all over the globe.

For more information visit Stamp Out Hunger.

Article first published as The Stamp Out Hunger Drive: Helping to End Hunger in America on Blogcritics.

WFP is providing aid to refugees who fled the conflict in Mali and have been arriving daily in Mauritania and other neighboring countries including Niger.WFP though is facing a funding shortage for its refugee relief mission.
Photo credit: WFP/Alan Mouton

As the hunger crisis deepens in eight countries of the Sahel region of Africa, humanitarian aid should be increasing. This is not the case though in parts of the drought-stricken area.

In Mauritania school meals for children have been reduced by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) due to low funding. WFP relies entirely on voluntary donations.

WFP’s March distribution of food to schools in Mauritania was supposed to provide 54 days of meals to the students. With the low funding WFP had to reduce the number of days children could receive meals from 54 to 40.

WFP runs the school feeding for around 150,000 students in nine rural areas where there is malnutrition and poverty. The meals are meant to keep the children in school especially at a time when drought and high prices have made it much harder for families to get food. WFP has struggled to find funding for the school meals program, leaving it constantly vulnerable to reduced rations.

No summer feeding program is available for the school children at present. So these children and their families will be headed into the peak period of the Sahel hunger crisis with one less source of food.

A program of summer take-home rations would provide a much-needed safety net for the 150,000 students, plus their families. This would be a crucial addition to ongoing WFP relief operations such as the provision of plumpy’sup, a special food to help combat potentially life threatening malnutrition in infants.

One of the areas in Mauritania where WFP provides school meals is called Hodh ech Chargui. There are 120,000 Mauritanians in this area, 37 percent of the population, who suffer from hunger.

The severe drought conditions is hard enough to cope with. There are even more challenges. Hodh ech Chargui is also hosting more than 63,000 refugees from a conflict in the neighboring country of Mali. WFP is facing an 86 percent shortage of funds to feed these refugees.

Mauritania, and other neighboring countries, are seeing a daily influx of refugees from Mali. The UN World Food Programme’s director Ertharin Cousin, who just visited the Sahel region, said she met a refugee who said, “everybody wants to leave Mali.” The stream of refugees from Mali is expected to continue. The funding for humanitarian aid has to start flowing more rapidly too.

The international community has to act now to fund all relief operations and be prepared for an increasing number of refugees. If the world acts now, it can help prevent a famine in the Sahel this summer.

Article first published as Mauritania: School Meals, Refugee Aid Lack Funding on Blogcritics.

There is fear the two nations will start an all-out war, a return to the level of suffering during the two-decade conflict that ended in 2005.

President Obama said directly to both Sudan and South Sudan last month, “It doesn’t have to be this way. Conflict is not inevitable. You still have a choice.”

South Sudan and Sudan can choose to implement the much needed “safe demilitarized border zone” which the UN Security Council is urging them to adopt. By pulling back their forces, they can stop the bloodshed, lower tensions and the risk of miscalculations by their forces, and allow humanitarian aid to flow more freely. There is tremendous hunger and poverty in this region.

The UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) Sudan director Chris Nikoi says, “The food security situation in the border states was already precarious. Now the border clashes threaten to displace more people and disrupt already fragile livelihoods.”

Food, water, medicine, shelter, and education need to constitute the sole focus on both sides of the border. This can only happen once Sudan and South Sudan pull their armies back from the brink.

John Quincy Adams once said about a buildup of arms on the Great Lakes along the U.S. border with British-ruled Canada in 1816, “the moral and political tendency of such a system must be to war and not to peace.” The U.S. and Britain chose then to demilitarize rather than escalate, having had enough of conflict from previous years. Treaties followed rather than war.

Such diplomacy is the only answer to South Sudan and Sudan’s struggle too. For it can open the only road to peace for the two countries: dialogue and negotiation.

See also “An Independent Nation’s Parallel Path to Lasting Peace”.

Article first published as Sudan, South Sudan Need Demilitarized Border on Blogcritics.

What cannot be forgotten amid the election hype is that Ohio is suffering from a growing hunger crisis. A report released on Friday from Feeding America, the nation’s largest food aid organization, showed that 18.1 percent of Ohio’s population is suffering from hunger. Last year the rate was 17 percent. This “food insecurity” affects over 2 million people in the state.

Five Congressional districts in Ohio had hunger rates well above the Ohio average (districts 1,3, 9, 11, 17). Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director at the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks, says, “We believe that no one in our state should go hungry or try to survive without access to adequate amounts of healthy, nutritious food.”

The arrival of summer brings a new problem and it’s not just legions of reporters and campaign staffs trouncing through the state. When school ends many children lose access to one of the most important safety nets against hunger, the federal free or reduced price breakfast and lunch programs.

This is an issue in Ohio and across the nation as the dilemma becomes how to distribute the food with most schools closed during the summer months. New feeding sites or mobile pantries are some of the options that have been utilized, but still huge gaps remain.

Many needy children who receive the meals during the school year end up going without during the summer. A report from the Children’s Hunger Alliance showed that in Franklin County, Ohio there were over 78,000 children who received the free or reduced price school lunches in 2011. In the summer though just over 11,000 children received the meals. In some counties there were no summer feeding sites at all last year.

Summer is coming and all eyes will be on Ohio since it’s the battleground state in the Barack Obama versus Mitt Romney presidential showdown.

What cannot be forgotten amid the election hype is that Ohio is suffering from a growing hunger crisis. A report released on Friday from Feeding America, the nation’s largest food aid organization, showed that 18.1 percent of Ohio’s population is suffering from hunger. Last year the rate was 17 percent. This “food insecurity” affects over 2 million people in the state.

Five Congressional districts in Ohio had hunger rates well above the Ohio average (districts 1,3, 9, 11, 17). Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director at the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks, says, “We believe that no one in our state should go hungry or try to survive without access to adequate amounts of healthy, nutritious food.”

The arrival of summer brings a new problem and it’s not just legions of reporters and campaign staffs trouncing through the state. When school ends many children lose access to one of the most important safety nets against hunger, the federal free or reduced price breakfast and lunch programs.

This is an issue in Ohio and across the nation as the dilemma becomes how to distribute the food with most schools closed during the summer months. New feeding sites or mobile pantries are some of the options that have been utilized, but still huge gaps remain.

Many needy children who receive the meals during the school year end up going without during the summer. A report from the Children’s Hunger Alliance showed that in Franklin County, Ohio there were over 78,000 children who received the free or reduced price school lunches in 2011. In the summer though just over 11,000 children received the meals. In some counties there were no summer feeding sites at all last year.

This summer of 2012, with Ohio’s rate of hunger increasing, many children are at risk unless summer feeding expands quickly.

One possible solution might involve offering citizens of Ohio a chance to buy CARE packages for needy children so they can have food assistance during the summer. The packages could be purchased at stores or online and shipped to needy children by foodbanks. This would be like a summer version of a program run by the Freestore Foodbank of Cincinnati called the Power Pack which gives children foods like rice, milk, and canned fruit to take home for the weekend during the school year.

Perhaps it is fitting that so much election focus will be on Ohio this year as it can shine the light on the hunger crisis facing this state was well as the nation. Feeding America reports there are nearly 49 million Americans who suffer from hunger.

Ohio incidentally has a storied history in the fight against hunger. It dates back to the early 1900′s to Cincinnati school teacher Ella Walsh who was a pioneer in developing school feeding. This spirit continued with support for the Belgian Relief Commission during World War I to the Ohio Food Train which helped win the peace after World War II by feeding the hungry. More recently it’s the expansion of school breakfast programs in Cincinnati.

Ohio has an opportunity now to not only shape the course of the next presidency, but provide a turning point in the struggle to end hunger in America.

Article first published as Romney-Obama Battleground State Suffering from Hunger Crisis on Blogcritics.

Children in class after eating their school meal at École Nationale République de la Colombie in Port-au-Prince.
Photo credit: WFP/Stephanie Tremblay

It’s been over two years since the earthquake struck Haiti. Now, with a massive hunger crisis unfolding on multiple fronts in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the spotlight has shifted away from this country with tremendous reconstruction needs.

Developing a national school feeding program is a top priority, but the danger is funding may drop off, thus breaking the momentum toward achieving this goal. A grant from the U.S. McGovern-Dole school meals program has been significant in helping Haiti. But additional funding is needed to ensure every child in Haiti receives school meals and an education.

With drought conditions hitting parts of Haiti, school feeding takes on more urgency. Families who struggle to access or afford food need the safety net of school feeding.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is helping Haiti provide school meals. Elizabeth Jennings, a public information officer for Haiti, provides us an update in the following interview.

How many children are currently receiving the school meals from WFP?

1.1 million primary age school children.

Are areas harmed by drought included in WFP’s school feeding?

WFP’s school feeding programme in Haiti is currently countrywide, supporting over 3000 schools. So, yes, we reach areas that have been and may potentially be again harmed by drought (where you often see chronic food insecurity), as well as areas that were directly and indirectly affected by the earthquake and areas that have been affected by flooding, among others. We are also in the process of re-targeting all of our activities after the emergency response, including school feeding, and are focusing on the most food-insecure areas in the country, which would also correspond to areas that are vulnerable to droughts, such as the Nord-Ouest.

How has funding from the McGovern-Dole school meals program helped WFP and Haiti?

The 3-year grant of $24 million dollars from McGovern-Dole has been vital to the program. The donation is made in in-kind commodities of WFP’s standard school meal ration (rice, beans, oil, salt), and has provided reliable, consistent support, starting in 2011 (the first year we received the commodities), and will provide commodities through the 2013-2014 school year (the last year of this grant).

We just received the second tranche of commodities which are currently the only resources we have to begin the program at the start of the 2012-2013 school year in September 2012, under the School Feeding Development Project.

There is also a small annual allocation, as part of the grant, for capacity building to the government of Haiti’s national school meals program, which is a critical priority for our work in Haiti. It is also one of WFP’s global strategic objectives. Monitoring & Evaluation, which will be a crucial part of the development of a nationally owned and managed school feeding program, also falls under this objective, alongside building local procurement capacity, with school feeding as a platform to improve local production and increase food security.

What are the biggest challenges currently facing WFP in providing school meals and helping Haiti build a national meals program? Is funding an issue?

Yes, funding is an issue. As is developing consistent, long-term funding so that the national program is able to maintain momentum for growth.

Fragile national capacity and weak implementation capacity is also, as you suspect, an issue. There is a vision for a universal, free school meals program by 2030. Attaining that goal means significant efforts in developing a strong legal and policy framework, strong leadership within the PNCS, support from the Ministry of Education, wherein PNCS resides, and a consistent source of funding for the program that supports the achievement of longer-term goals. WFP provides both technical and implementation support for the school feeding program, as well as prioritizing growing its local procurement activities in the country, linked closely with the school feeding program (as mentioned in point 3).

There are also other school feeding partners and donors in Haiti and though WFP has the largest program, these other parallel school feeding programs (and pipelines) can occasionally make coordination among actors somewhat tenuous, though not impossible.

Are children to receive summer feeding when schools are closed?

WFP is unfortunately not able to provide food for summer camps (camps d’été) this year due to limited funding and resources, though traditionally we have incorporated summer camps into our overall school feeding program.

For more information about Haiti visit the World Food Programme.

Article first published as Haiti: Drought, Low Funding Threaten School Meals Program on Blogcritics.