UN food programme to cut aid to Afghanistan

Jun 27, 2011, 12:58 GMT

Kabul - Food assistance for millions of vulnerable Afghans is to be cut by half due to a lack of funding, United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said Monday.

The WFP said they would instead focus the 'remaining resources on helping the most vulnerable in areas with the highest levels of food insecurity'.

The country, one of the world's poorest and ravaged by decades of war, faces severe food shortages. Decrease in food aid means WFP can now feed only 3.8 million Afghans, almost half of earlier projected beneficiary of 7 million.

'We want to assure our beneficiaries in Afghanistan that we are working hard to raise the funds needed to restart these activities as soon as we can,' said Bradley Guerrant, the WFP deputy country director.

WFP said the cut would affect school meals for children, food-for-training activities and food-for-work programmes in about half of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, starting this month.

'We have had to make some very difficult decisions about how to refocus our work in Afghanistan because of the funding shortage,' said Guerrant of the WFP, the UN humanitarian agency for food assistance.

Afghanistan is among the most vulnerable countries in the world for food supply, according to the Food Security Risk Index 2010