World Food Programme appeals for 5.2-billion-dollar aid package

Rome - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said Tuesday it needs some 5.2 billion dollars in donor funding to provide aid to some 98 million hungry people in 2009. 'As we take care of Wall Street and Main Street, we can't forget the places that have no streets,' WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in a statement from the Rome-based agency. She was referring to the appeal which WFP says is a 'fraction' of what is being proposed in financial rescue packages to address the global economic downturn. 'We need to send a bold signal of hope to the world with a human rescue package,' Sheeran said, speaking from New Delhi, India, the country which according to WFP has the single largest population of undernourished people in the world. Without a rapid injection of funds, millions of people in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya and other hunger hot spots will run out of food assistance by the end of March, when warehouse stocks run out, WFP warned. The UN agency is voluntarily funded, and relies on annual contributions for all of its programmes. Sheeran said that with a mere 1 per cent of what has been tabled for financial rescue packages and stimulus packages in the United States and Europe, developed countries could fully fund the work of the WFP. Such a contribution would go towards meeting other urgent hunger needs, for example feeding all 59 million hungry school children worldwide, an estimated cost of 3 billion dollars per year. Funds are also needed to boost the agricultural production of small-holder farmers who have seen the price of seeds and fertilizers more than double since 2006. WFP's urgent call comes off the back of historically high food prices, followed by continued market volatility. Another Rome-based UN agency the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced last week that another 40 million people have been pushed into hunger this year primarily due to high food prices, bringing the total number of hungry to nearly 1 billion worldwide. This increase comes after four decades of progress when the international community collectively helped to bring down the percentage of hungry people from 37 to 17.