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GENEVA / MALI
STORY: GENEVA / MALI
TRT: 1.51
SOURCE: CH UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: FRENCH / NATS
DATELINE: 19 MARCH 2013, PALAIS DE NATIONS, UNITED NATIONS GENEVA HEADQUARTERS
1. Exterior, Palais de Nations, United Nations Geneva Headquarters
2. Wide shot, Salle III, Palais des Nations, Geneva.
3. Med shot, journalists listening
4. SOUNDBITE (FRENCH) Elisabeth Byers, Spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Programme:
“The crisis has not ended in Mali, and far from being over, there are still many things left for us to do, notably sending aid to the population in the north who are suffering from the effects of the conflict, and to the population of the south who are suffering from the impact of drought.
5. Cutaway, journalists listening
6. SOUNDBITE (FRENCH) Elisabeth Byers, Spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Programme:
“Security conditions are still very unpredictable, and there are still many places that remain inaccessible, and where we cannot distribute humanitarian assistance.”
7. Cutaway, journalists listening
8. SOUNDBITE (FRENCH) Elisabeth Byers, Spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Programme:
“Transport by trucks- commercial transport- has started again slowly, and we will now send humanitarian aid and food by truck from Mopti and Bamako to Gao, Kidal and to Menaka.”
9. Cutaway, journalists listening
10. SOUNDBITE (FRENCH) Elisabeth Byers, Spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Programme:
“We have also started a school ration for children, and we have helped 20 schools, which represent a total of 8,600 children who receive food and humanitarian assistance in the region of Gao.”
11. Med shot, journalists listening
12. Wide shot, journalists listening
The United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) said Tuesday it was stepping up food assistance to northern Mali, which had been cut off since the conflict flared a year ago.
Speaking to journalists at a news briefing in Geneva, Elizabeth Byrs, spokesperson for WFP said the crisis has not ended in Mali and was far from being over.
Parts of Mali have recently become more accessible and WFP has begun to send food to Northern Mali, which had been cut off from most humanitarian assistance since conflict flared one year ago. However the situation is still volatile and many areas remain out of reach.
Byrs said that “the Security conditions are still very unpredictable, and there are still many places that remain inaccessible, and where we cannot distribute humanitarian assistance.”
Conflict in the north of the country triggered widespread displacement within Mali and into neighbouring countries, uprooting half a million people and placing pressure on vulnerable host communities still recovering from the Sahel drought.
The WFP said that more than 270,000 people had been displaced within Mali, while more than 170,000 refugees had fled to neighbouring Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger, where the WFP and its partners are providing food relief.
The armed conflict in Mali has exacerbated a cycle of drought and food shortages in the arid Sahel band stretching east to west across Africa below the Sahara desert.
WFP plans to reach more than one million people in Mali this year and a further one million in Burkina Faso, with a variety of programmes including assistance to displaced people, school feeding, training, cash and voucher programmes that help people buy locally-produced food and nutrition for mothers and young children.
In 2013, WFP’s plans to assist 5.5 million people in eight countries affected by the impact of the Mali conflict and last year’s drought – Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and The Gambia – with a total budget of US$611 million.
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