Declining aid threatens Afghan food security

Kabul: The UN's World Food Programme WFP.L raised only about half its annual $400 million Afghanistan budget in 2011, and even less was expected for 2012, Bradley Guerrant, the agency's deputy director for Afghanistan, said this week.

An Afghan man cooks breakfast in his restaurant in Kabul October 25, 2011/ Photo credit: Reuters/ Files

"We are planning for 45% (of a once projected $400 million) for next year," Guerrant told Reuters in an interview.

Donor support had been cut on the back of global economic woes, and the WFP needs to prioritise given such a major shortfall.

Funds will be focused on emergency food assistance, support for the most vulnerable families, especially households headed by disabled people and women, and supplementary feeding programmes for malnourished children under five years old and pregnant women.

Other programmes meant to make communities more food secure -- including agriculture schemes and a school feeding programme -- will have to be cut back, Guerrant said.

"We are making some very difficult decisions right now," he said.

Along with the government and other non-governmental groups, the WFP has been working on low-tech but high-return projects to improve irrigation in communities that open up new land for crops and make people less dependent on food assistance.

The agency has also sought to give farmers access to markets by buying their wheat or other products that form part of the WFP's food basket, although success has been mixed due to lack of surplus production or uncompetitive local prices.

Violence across Afghanistan has been at its worst since the hardline Islamist Taliban were toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, hampering access to food.

In 2010, the WFP lost some 22,000 tonnes of food aid that was being trucked into Afghanistan during catastrophic floods in Pakistan. A drought in the 2010/11 season has also put more people at risk and in need of food aid.

It was too early to make a forecast for the current season, but for now rainfalls had come on time, Guerrant said.

Wheat is Afghanistan's staple crop and the country needs about 5.2 million tonnes a year to meet demand. Two in every three people in Afghanistan do not get enough or the right food to meet their nutritional needs.

The WFP is supplying food aid to about 7.3 million Afghans and, while the situation has improved since it first came to the country nearly half a century ago, challenges remain.

"It continues with the funding, then knowing how the overall situation goes in terms of security and access," Guerrant said.

"One challenge is also ensuring that the food gets to the right people," he said, referring to allegations of corruption in food delivery.