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STORY: GENEVA / GLOBAL FOOD ASSISTANCE
TRT: 1:34
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 20 JULY 2017, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. External shot, Palais des Nations Flag Alley
2. Wide shot, Press conference, Palais des Nations
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Steven Were Omamo, Deputy Director, Policy and Programme Division, World Food Programme (WFP):
“Food assistance is largely in the hands of national governments; international food assistance is extremely important, but national systems are much more important. Just think of India’s system that provides support to 800 million people just by itself.”
4. Wide shot, presser
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Steven Were Omamo, Deputy Director, Policy and Programme Division, World Food Programme (WFP):
“Every year just we as WFP are unable to meet the needs of those that we assess require assistance. Last year the funding gap just for WFP between amounts received and what we required was over US$ 3 billion.”
6 Close up, report cover
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Steven Were Omamo, Deputy Director, Policy and Programme Division, World Food Programme (WFP):
“We’re not pretending to suggest that it’s only conflict, only war that’s driving that big hunger number but it’s a factor, it’s a factor because it has implications for a country’s capacity to address needs.”
8. Med shot, journalist and photographer
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Steven Were Omamo, Deputy Director, Policy and Programme Division, World Food Programme (WFP):
“This business is a costly business, it’s a costly business due to a range of factors, many of which have to do with just pure access issues, and when those access challenges are overcome there’s a saving."
10. Various shots, presser
In a new report, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) notes that its costs spiked by more than 140 per cent over a seven-year period – from $2.2 billion in 2009 to $5.3 billion in 2015.
Poor aid access to communities in need costs WFP around US$1 billion a year alone.
Co-author of the agency’s World Food Assistance report, WFP’s Steven Were Omamo, blamed conflict and political instability for the situation, while also calling on governments to rethink their priorities.
Speaking today (20 Jul) to reporters in Geneva he said, “This business is a costly business, it’s a costly business due to a range of factors, many of which have to do with pure access issues, and when those access challenges are overcome there’s a saving."
The UN agency has warned of a growing funding gap that risks preventing it from reaching vulnerable communities in around 80 countries.
Other massive costs include those caused by climate shocks, poor delivery networks and conflict.
Find workarounds to these problems and the savings to WFP “could be as high as US$ 3.5 billion a year”, it says.
WFP may be the world’s largest international food assistance agency, but its efforts are still dwarfed by national government initiatives – take India, which provides subsidized food to a staggering 800 million people.
That, by the way, is the number of people globally who go to bed on an empty stomach every night.
The reallocation of public funds for food in India is the kind of thing that WFP wants to see other countries start to imitate, though it could just as easily be in the form of cash-for-aid transfers.
WFP’s Steven Were Omamo also said, “Food assistance is largely in the hands of national governments; international food assistance is extremely important, but national systems are much more important. Just think of India’s system that provides support to 800 million people just by itself.”
Reflecting the huge shift in international food assistance in recent years, cash-aid – as opposed to food aid – has surged from almost nothing in 2009 to represent one-fifth of WFP’s assistance last year.
Looking ahead, immediate food crises are already happening in South Sudan, Yemen, north-east Nigeria and Somalia.
WFP will do everything it can to help, but Steven Were Omamo said that it is time for countries to “prioritize” their spending on food assistance, in recognition of the fact that food can address underlying problems of poverty, even in times of emergency saying,“We’re not pretending to suggest that it’s only conflict, only war that’s driving that big hunger number but it’s a factor, it’s a factor because it has implications for a country’s capacity to address needs.”
