Hunger keeps people poor.

• Author: Ifill, Annette
• Position: SystemWatch

The world's poorest nations were repeatedly hit by both natural and man-made emergencies in 2000, and the combination of these two emergencies not only has a major impact on the poorest but all too often can prevent the humanitarian relief community from reaching those in desperate need of assistance. According to the Annual Report 2000 of the World Food Programme (WFP), the increasing number of humanitarian hot spots around the world demanded help from the Programme (accounting for almost half of its total expenditures) and the international community. During 1997-2000, the number of drought victims assisted by WFP more than quadrupled, and events last year proved that international aid can make a difference when resources are provided in time. The Programme received $1.75 billion and shipped 3.7 million tons of food worldwide, of which 117,000 tons were on behalf of donors. Victims were often women, children and the poverty-stricken--those least equipped to look after themselves.

WFP, with other UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), showed that a massive relief effort could avert a famine and save millions of lives. Several years of insufficient rains and resultant poor harvests had produced a severe drought in the Horn of Africa. Migration and cross-border movements put a further strain on resources as people searched for new pasture, better conditions and outside help. Catherine Bertini, WFP Executive Director and the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, was instrumental in alerting the international community and mobilizing substantial resources to address food and non-food needs, and within months the UN relief intervention had helped turn the tide in that region.

The WFP emergency operation fed 180,000 drought-affected poor rural people in Nicaragua and Honduras, and supported reconstruction and rehabilitation there. When the worst floods in recent history hit Mozambique in February 2000, a massive helicopter search-and-rescue operation pulled victims from treetops and assisted thousands stranded on crowded islands without food and clean water. WFP provided emergency food aid to 700,000 flood victims in Cambodia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Viet Nam, and aid reached 900,000 of the poorest people caught in the floodwaters of Bangladesh. It also assisted in the rehabilitation of local infrastructure damaged by flooding through food-for-work schemes.

WFP delivered humanitarian aid to...