Dushanbe, April 19, Asia-Plus — The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) today welcomed an in-kind contribution from the
United States
, valued at US$6.34 million, which will go to assist vulnerable and food insecure households in
Tajikistan
.
According to information from the WFP Dushanbe office, the donation consists of 11,130 metric tons of wheat flour, pulses and vegetable oil, which are expected to arrive in April/May 2006 and will be distributed through ongoing WFP activities, such as Food for Education, support to tuberculosis (TB) patients and their families and the Therapeutic/Supplementary Feeding Program.
These activities are implemented with Action Against Hunger, Project Sino, Project Hope, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health.
Since the beginning of WFP’s current operation in
Tajikistan
in 2003, the
United States
has been the first and largest donor to WFP with more than 48 percent of all contributions coming through its development agencies: USAID and USDA. So far, the
United States
has donated more than 42,000 metric tons of food commodities to this current operation in
Tajikistan
, which assists more than 780,000 people living in the most food insecure districts in the country.
“There still remains a large number of poor people in
Tajikistan
who are not benefiting from the recent economic growth in the country. This
US
contribution enables WFP to continue its school feeding programme and support TB patients in poor food insecure districts of the country,” said Daniela Owen, WFP’s Country Director in
Tajikistan
.
WFP began its operation in
Tajikistan
in 1993 to help those who were left impoverished in the aftermath of the civil war. Since then, millions of Tajiks have benefited from WFP’s food assistance, especially those populations living in remote food-deficit areas.
Current donors to WFP Tajikistan include: the
United States
(US$24.7 million);
Japan
(US$6.1 million);
Russia
(US$6 million);
Netherlands
(US$3.3 million);
Germany
(US$923,000);
Sweden
(US$935,000);
Denmark
(US$891,000);
Ireland
(US$744,000);
Canada
(US$607,000);
Switzerland
(US$400,000);
Luxembourg
(US$265,000) and
Turkey
(US$150,000).
