UN: $1.2bn to feed 75m people

2008-06-04 19:08

Rome - The head of a UN aid agency said on Wednesday that a total of US$1.2bn has been donated by countries for food for 75 million people going hungry because of soaring food prices.

Many people in poor countries cannot afford to buy the food available in markets, World Food Programme head Josette Sheeran said.

Two weeks ago, the aid agency said its appeal to donor countries to cover the unexpected costs of buying food for those left hungry by the price increases was so successful that US$960m had been given, some US$200m more that it originally asked for.

Sheeran's announcement at the summit meant that US$240m had arrived in the past two weeks.

The new funds, from a "generous response" of donors, will go for food in more than 60 countries that have been hardest hit by the food crisis, Sheeran told a UN food summit.

The agency said it is tripling the number of people who receive food in Haiti, where rising food prices led to deadly riots and cost the prime minister his job. It will double the number of those who will receive food in Afghanistan; and it will deliver critical food assistance to people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

"We have mobilised our 10 000 employees and every dollar and euro given to us, to reach as many hungry people as we can at this critical time," Sheeran said in a written statement.

Sheeran attended a three-day food summit hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, a UN food agency based in Rome, like WFP.

She told the summit that she was just in Myanmar where "there was food in the market" but that many people, left hungry by the cyclone, did not have the money to buy rice.

Sheeran said WFP was purchasing 80% of the food for distribution in the local countries.

- AP