THE 2020 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Upon this occasion, the Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM) made an exclusive interview with Mr Stephen Anderson, Country Director and Representative of the World Food Programme (WFP) Myanmar.
Q: Please can you tell us a brief account of the WFP Myanmar background?
A: The World Food Programme (WFP) established its country office in Myanmar in 1994. Since that date, WFP has been working with the Government of Myanmar and other national and international partners to develop innovative solutions to meet food and nutrition needs across the country with a focus on relief assistance, school feeding, asset creation and nutrition programmes. WFP also provides logistics and common service support to the humanitarian community.
Q: What are the WFP efforts to combat hunger worldwide as well as in Myanmar? (as the WFP received the Nobel Peace Prize 2020 in this regard.)
A: Globally, WFP is providing food and assistance for close to 100 million hungry children, women and men across the world in 88 countries. WFP's efforts focus on emergency assistance, relief and rehabilitation, development aid and special operations. Two-thirds of WFP's work is in conflict-affected countries where people are three times more likely to be undernourished than those living in countries without conflict. On any given day, WFP has 5,600 trucks, 30 ships and nearly 100 planes on the move, delivering food and other assistance to those in most need. Every year, we distribute more than 15 billion rations at an estimated average cost per ration of US$ 0.61.
In Myanmar, WFP combines the direct implementation of food assistance in areas of conflict, with increasing capacity strengthening activities, with a view to laying the groundwork for government ownership of food and nutrition security programmes by 2030. We assist over 550,000 people every month, through food and nutrition assistance, school meals programme, and asset creation and livelihood activities.
Q: What will the WFP's future programmes be for Myanmar?
A: For the time-being, WFP is closely focused on supporting the government's COVID-19 response, providing food assistance to people in health facilities and quarantine centres in Yangon and Rakhine. We are also using our procurement and supply chain capacity to procure vital PPE equipment to ensure frontline staff in the fight against COVID-19 are properly protected and able to continue their essential work.
We will, of course, continue our regular operations to provide assistance to people affected by conflict and natural disasters across the country, especially in Rakhine, southern Chin, Shan and Kachin states - at the same time seeking more sustainable solutions to help ensure communities can provide for their own needs. In this work, we seek not only to provide people with an adequate amount of food but also emphasize the importance of a healthy and nutritious diet to the overall well-being and prosperity of the nation. This nutrition-sensitive approach begins in the schools which we assist with schools' meals, and is sewn into all our programming across Myanmar and around the world.
We are also very aware that the impact of COVID-19 is not just an immediate one on health, but also a longer-term blow to the country's economic development. As such, WFP is already closely engaged in monitoring the impact of the pandemic on food and nutrition security across the country, and especially in the areas where we work.
We are adding some of the poorest informal settlements of Yangon to the parts of the country we have under close watch at this time. In due course, we expect to expand our programming in these areas to protect the health and livelihoods of those left furthest behind, and it is my hope that this wonderful recognition of our work today by the Nobel Committee will refocus the minds of the world on the long road we must still travel to reach Zero Hunger, and help ensure we have the resources we need to do our vital work here in Myanmar. — GNLM
