The World Food Program (WFP) has informed of expansion of its aids to Afghan needy people across the country. Amid the ongoing food insecurity in Afghanistan, the organization is set to provide more than 15 million Afghans Afghans with food assistance every month till March 2023. “Our plan for winter is to provide food assistance to more than 15 million every month,” said Wahidullah Amani, a spokesperson for WFP Afghanistan. He said the organization has decided to provide more than 15 million people in Afghanistan with food assistance straight after the US, Europe and other global partners concluded that humanitarian aid is not sufficient to solve the ongoing crisis in the war-torn nation.
Earlier, the World Food Program stated that it would buy 80,000 tons of wheat from Ukraine to distribute to Afghanistan’s needy people. Amid the Ukraine war, the World Food Program has called for USD 1.1 billion to continue delivering monthly food and nutritional assistance for the next six months to 15 million acutely food-insecure people in Afghanistan.
This comes as Afghan economic experts by criticizing the WFP program through which Afghan needy families have been provided with aid in the past one year said the organization has further attention to neighboring countries particularly the Pakistan comparing to Afghanistan, saying that most aids which need to be distributed to Afghans are provided through Pakistan, which take much time. They are asking the WFP leadership to take urgent steps in this regard so that the aids were transferred via air corridor and urgently distribute them to need people of the country.
According to the economic experts, the majority of Afghans living in villages and remote areas are deprived of WFP aids, asking the organization to pay attention to the needy families in remote areas.
Meanwhile, several locals have complained of not receiving any aid, lack of transparency in international aid amid the high prices of basic food commodities and increasing unemployment in the country. They ask for justice and transparency in distribution of aids to the people.
“Aid distributing representatives usually put the names of their relatives rather than put the name of most needy families. In area where we live, most needy families have not received aids so far, while we have repeatedly witnessed aids distribution program,” said Spozhmay, an Afghan mother.
Another Afghan citizen from Herat says aids have been distributed to 40 families in a district in Herat, while 450 families are living and all of them are poor.
The WFP is the only organization that distributes humanitarian aid for needy people all over the world. The organization pays particular and more attention to countries where people live in poverty. This time, the World Food Program plans to provide more aids to Afghanistan to address increasing poverty and hunger in the country. The organization has also asked aid organizations to help this organization in strengthening the unprecedented aid to the people of Afghanistan.
The World Food Program (WFP) says it has provided and distributed its aids to 15 million people across Afghanistan in the past one year.
It is said that the country’s economy is expected to shrink dramatically in 2022 by up to 20%, which, combined with food price inflation and drought conditions in many parts, can result in the extreme case scenario of poverty affecting 95-97% of the population. Shukria Kohistani
