ADDIS ABABA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The UN World Food Programme (WFP) urges leaders and policy makers to, among others, confront the political drivers of vulnerability and hunger to capture full benefit of food assistance.
The report entitled, "World Food Assistance 2017: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead," was launched on Wednesday at the AU headquarters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.
The report analyzes trends, challenges and solutions in food assistance while placing humanitarian action, risk and vulnerability at the core of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2 (zero hunger).
The report calls for efforts to increase humanitarian access, promote stability, and reduce the cost and enhance the effectiveness of food assistance.
Presenting the report, Steve Were Omamo, WFP official, told reporters that there should be continued effort to address political factor to benefit from food assistance.
The report underlines also the need to improve the quality of food assistance programmes, boost emergency preparedness and response, resilience, gender equality, nutrition and food system performance; strengthen national capacity and South-South cooperation to capture the full benefits of food assistance.
Stating that food assistance is vital to international humanitarian assistance, the report indicates that about 40 percent of total humanitarian spending is on food assistance.
Food assistance expenditures by WFP more than doubled from 2009 to 2016, increasing from 2.2 U.S. dollars billion to 5.3 billion dollars, according to the report.
While food assistance from national governments is much larger than that from international actors, funding for international food assistance is at record levels.
The report reveals, however, that international food assistance is not sufficient to meet needs, identifying a funding gap of 937 million U.S. dollars in 2013, and 3.16 billion dollars in 2015 and 2.68 billion dollars in 2016.
It also finds that spending on international food assistance differs by region and income level, while it has changed significantly in recent years.
Food assistance is constrained by lack of humanitarian access, instability and poorly performing food systems, according to the report.
From different sources, challenges facing food assistance include, climate change, conflict, urbanization and inequality, financing, access, protection and security as well as the structure and functioning of food systems.
The launch of the report is timely and pertinent to Africa, given the humanitarian crises now besetting the continent currently due to violent conflicts and climate-induced natural calamities leading to forced displacement, said Khabele Matlosa, AU Director for Political Affairs.
Africa hosts 17.8 million forcibly displaced people, of this 5.6 million are refugees and asylum seekers, according to the official.
Stating that a total of 13.2 million are internally displaced persons, the Director said, "The problem of food insecurity and malnutrition is particularly severe in situations of forced displacement, especially among women and children."
"As we launching this publication, we are addressing one of the major challenges facing Africa today, namely food insecurity largely as a result of violent conflicts, drought, famine, floods, and other climate-change effects," he said.
