DUSHANBE, October 3, 2012, Asia-Plus — The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomed a generous contribution of more than €800,000 from the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection office (ECHO) to provide food assistance to more than 85,000 people.
A joint press release issued by WFP and ECHO says the grant to WFP is part of a €2-million ECHO contribution to Tajikistan to support the most vulnerable people who have suffered extensive losses in the last 12 months, partly because of an extremely harsh winter. Many families lost crops and livestock due to heavy snow and early frost and avalanches cut off communities for months.
The focus is on emergency interventions which should help and bridge the gap till the next harvest season.
“WFP is sincerely grateful to ECHO for its support. This recent contribution will enable WFP to continue providing assistance to tens of thousands of Tajiks living in impoverished rural areas and help them get through the next winter,” said WFP Country Director in Tajikistan Alzira Ferreira. “There continues to be a large number of families in Tajikistan who are not benefiting from the recent economic growth in the country and are in dire need of assistance.”
WFP will use the grant to provide a two-month supply of staple commodities including fortified wheat flour, vitamin-enriched vegetable oil, pulses and iodized salt, to the most vulnerable and food insecure households in Tajikistan.
The one-time assistance package will be given to households in the Rasht Valley, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO), Sughd and Khatlon provinces which suffered particularly badly in the winter.
In addition to food distributions, WFP plans to use part of the ECHO donation to launch a pilot cash assistance program in Sughd province, which will cover almost 1,500 households.
WFP will also use the grant to implement – in partnership with the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) – a livestock provision project for 500 households in GBAO’s Murgab district to enhance the food security of approximately 15 percent of the district’s population.
WFP and its partners will work on identifying families who will benefit from these food, cash and livestock provision programs. Assistance will target poor families with low income levels, small patches of land and few animals.
