The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is helping Kyrgyzstan through tough economic times. Kyrgyzstan, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has suffered through numerous agricultural disasters including drought, locust infestations, hail storms and spring frosts. These events plus the global economic crisis has made WFP's assistance to the country vital.
School feeding for children will be one of WFP's key activities for 2010. The school meals and other aid programs will depend on WFP receiving enough funding from international donors. Abeer Etefa of the World Food Programme reports that only 6 million of a required 20 million U.S. dollars has been received for food programs in Kyrgyzstan.
Here is some additional background on Kyrgyzstan from the WFP:
The Kyrgyz Republic is a low-income, food-deficit, landlocked country with a population of 5.2 million. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and independence in 1991, the country suffered a dramatic rise in poverty. Since 1996, the country’s economy has been recovering, experiencing steady positive economic growth. However, despite having taken significant strides towards reducing poverty, almost 40 percent of the population (or 2 million people) remain poor and the country remains vulnerable to
economic shocks.
Assessments show that one person in three is considered food insecure and one in five is considered at high nutrition and health risk owing to poor food consumption. In recent years the country suffered a series of shocks, which resulted in a deterioration of the food security situation and the
need for humanitarian interventions.
Extremely cold weather in 2007/08 and large-scale depletion of the country’s hydroelectric resources resulted in additional hardship and a sharp increase in energy prices. Moreover, three successive drought years and a sequence of locust infestations, hail storms and spring frosts inflicted serious damage on the agricultural sector. Recently, the global financial crisis has resulted in an abrupt economic slowdown in Kyrgyzstan and has led to a sharp drop in the amount of remittances from migrant workers, a significant source of income for the country. Furthermore, price monitoring indicates that falling global food prices after a soaring year of food prices have not been passed on to the poor households in the Kyrgyz Republic, where commodity costs remain high. Against this backdrop, many households are currently unable to achieve a minimally acceptable dietary intake. This is especially true for vulnerable poor rural populations.
The Kyrgyzstan WFP program -
Mainly assistance to food-insecure households affected by the multiple shocks in partnership with the Kyrgyz government in its efforts to support the re-establishment of likelihood, food and nutrition security of food insecure communities. Current WFP activities focus on strengthening the government safety net programs to ensure that the most food insecure populations have access to sufficient food inputs at critical times of the year or at critical times of their lives. This includes seasonal food assistance to vulnerable groups. WFP is also working to implement a number of projects with partners that aim to sustainably improve and preserve the livelihoods of poor and food insecure households through cash, food for work, food for training activities in partnership with the other UN agencies and the authorities. In 2010 plans to further enhance its portfolio of activities to include school feeding and strengthening of the Government national food security monitoring system.
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