14.6m people require emergency food assistance: WFP

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed USAID’s $16.5 million contribution to its emergency response in Pakistan, where the lives of 33 million people have been upended by the unprecedented floods.

“It will be a tough journey ahead for the millions of people devastated by the floods, but the United States will continue to stand by Pakistan’s side,” said Reed Aeschliman, USAID Pakistan Mission Director. To complement the government’s response, the WFP has ramped up its operations to provide food, nutrition, recovery and resilience support to 2.7 million people. To date, the WFP has reached close to 700,000 people with food and livelihoods support, and 23,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women and children with specialized nutritious foods to prevent and treat malnutrition and boost their immunity. Vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities, transgenders and households headed by children or women are at the centre of WFP’s response.

Through WFP’s field offices in Balochistan, KP, Punjab and Sindh, WFP is coordinating with humanitarian partners to ensure an integrated response for affected communities. Working closely with USAID’s BHA, WFP has received all its relief cargo of non-food items dispatched via an airbridge to Islamabad and also Sukkur and Karachi in Sindh and is supporting transport and temporary storage of these items before they are distributed to the affected population. WFP has also supported NDMA with logistics, storage and management of its relief cargo.

The recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) assessment carried out in the high-risk districts of Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) indicate that the number of people requiring emergency food assistance will increase to 14.6 million.