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UN PhotoUN / WFP AID FUNDING CUTS
STORY: UN / WFP AID FUNDING CUTS
TRT: 5:25
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WFP FOOTAGE ON SCREEN.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 15 OCTOBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
15 OCTOBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response:
“Just to say, in Afghanistan, a country with, you know, more than ten million people that are hungry, facing acute food insecurity, we have assistance to reach less than 10 percent of those people. We expect pipeline breaks or funding breaks as early as November of this year, and we are only going to be able to provide assistance, typically, there is a winter season assistance, humanitarian assistance packages for those living in remote and cut off areas during the winter, and normally that is quite a large program for us. And this year, less than eight percent of those in need of winterization support will receive that support. So without that additional funding, millions will suffer through this winter season.”
WFP – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 22 AUGUST 2023, JALALABAD, AFGHANISTAN
4. Various shots, food markets and bakery
WFP – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 23 AUGUST 2023, JALALABAD, AFGHANISTAN
5. Various shots, children eating food bought with WFP Cash Voucher
15 OCTOBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response:
“Turning to the Democratic Republic of Congo, we're seeing record levels of hunger there. More than 27 million people are facing acute food insecurity. And our plan is to assist at the beginning of this year, less than 2.3 million of those. Those are people in IPC4. But due to funding gaps, we're now focus only on one million people the middle of this year and we're reducing that number down to 600,000 before the end of this year, in October of this year.”
WFP – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 12-14 MARCH 2024, GOMA, DRC
7. Various shots, WFP food distribution
15 OCTOBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
8.SOUNDBITE (English) Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response:
“Turning to Haiti. Haiti, as you know, I think is in some ways there is a minor success story that we are seeing a reductions of people in IPC5 like conditions, facing famine, because of some targeted assistance in specific areas where these were hotspots, But still it's facing record levels of hunger. And we've been forced to suspend our hot meals program for displaced people. And we've halved monthly rations because of funding issues there.”
20 SEPTEMBER 2024, PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI
9. Various shots, Nutrition testing in Lycée Marie-Jeanne
15 OCTOBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response:
“And I think this is at a time when we are seeing some worrying security dynamics in Somalia. And continued displacement in some parts of Somalia. So it's a real concern for us whether there is going to be the safety net to support people in Somalia through other funding streams and the vacuum on the humanitarian front for sure.”
WFP - CREDIT ON SCREEN - 19 OCTOBER 2022, BAIDOA, SOMALIA
11. Various shots, Baidoa IDP Camp. Mothers with children queuing at the nutrition point where they are tested for malnutrition.
15 OCTOBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response:
“We are shifting in South Sudan away from what used to be a very large program in the absence of significant government support for many people to one now that is really famine prevention and moving from hotspot to hotspot.”
WFP – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 30 JUNE 2025, NYUENY, UPPER NILE STATE, SOUTH SUDAN
13.Various shots, WFP Airdrops
15 OCTOBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
14.SOUNDBITE (English) Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response:
“But we do have the capacity in Sudan to reach somewhere between seven and eight million people, but we cannot because of funding constraints. So unless we receive additional funding in Sudan, we will have to continue to start reducing our footprint in Sudan.”
WFP – CREDIT ON SCREEN – 18 APRIL 2025, KHARTOUM, SUDAN
15.Various shots, children being tested for malnutrition in Omdurman area of Khartoum
WFP – CREDIT ON SCREEN – 27 APRIL 2025, TAWILA, SUDAN
16.Various shots, WFP food trucks arriving in Tawila Camp (Darfur) from Chad
15 OCTOBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
17. Wide shot, press briefing room
18.SOUNDBITE (English) Jean Martin Bauer, WFP’s Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis:
“We estimate that 13.7 million people will fall into emergency levels of hunger as a result of funding cuts.”
19.Wide shot, press briefing room
20.SOUNDBITE (English) Jean Martin Bauer, WFP’s Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis:
“What we need to do is to safeguard the data and the information systems that have been threatened by this situation of the funding cuts. Now, what we need to know is that the data and analytics that are the GPS of the humanitarian system and that that GPS is under threat, without it, we might get lost. We might not be going in the direction we need to go. Let's make sure we keep the data flowing in the humanitarian space.”
21. Wide shot, press briefing room
Worldwide, up to 13.7 million more people may face emergency levels of food insecurity, according to a new WFP report examining the fallout of funding cuts.
Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness and Response and Jean Martin Bauer, WFP’s Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis briefed reporters today (15 Oct) on a new report entitled “A lifeline At Risk”. They spoke via video link.
Ross Smith focused on the six countries that are at most critical risk this year because of funding cuts. They are Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.
On Afghanistan, Smith said that more than ten million people that are hungry, facing acute food insecurity in the country.
“We have assistance to reach less than 10 percent of those people. We expect pipeline breaks or funding breaks as early as November of this year,” the WFP official said.
He added that this year, “less than eight percent of those in need of winterization support will receive that support. So without that additional funding, millions will suffer through this winter season.”
Turning to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Smith said, “we're seeing record levels of hunger there. More than 27 million people are facing acute food insecurity.”
WFP’s plan is to assist at the beginning of this year, less than 2.3 million of those people in IPC4, “but due to funding gaps, we're now focus only on one million people the middle of this year and we're reducing that number down to 600,000 before the end of this year, in October of this year,” the WFP official explained.
Taking Haiti as “a minor success story” that sees a reductions of people in IPC5 like conditions, facing famine, because of some targeted assistance in specific areas where these were hotspots. “But still it's facing record levels of hunger. And we've been forced to suspend our hot meals program for displaced people. And we've halved monthly rations because of funding issues there,” Smith added.
On Somalia, he said, “we are seeing some worrying security dynamics in Somalia. And continued displacement in some parts of Somalia,” adding it's “a real concern” for WFP whether there is going to be the safety net to support people in Somalia through other funding streams and the vacuum on the humanitarian front.
“We are shifting in South Sudan away from what used to be a very large program in the absence of significant government support for many people to one now that is really famine prevention and moving from hotspot to hotspot,” the WFP official said.
On Sudan, WFP has the capacity to reach somewhere between seven and eight million people, “but we cannot because of funding constraints,” Smith said, warning that unless additional funding are received, WFP will have to continue to start reducing its footprint in Sudan.
For his part, WFP’s official Jean Martin Bauer, said, “What we need to do is to safeguard the data and the information systems that have been threatened by this situation of the funding cuts.”
He added, “what we need to know is that the data and analytics that are the GPS of the humanitarian system and that that GPS is under threat, without it, we might get lost. We might not be going in the direction we need to go. Let's make sure we keep the data flowing in the humanitarian space.”
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