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Afghanistan + 2 more

WFP Afghanistan Country Brief, September 2019

Attachments

In Numbers

In September, WFP assisted 851,879 people in need with 8,447 metric tons of food.

WFP distributed US$939,361 in cash transfers to cover families’ food needs.

US$28 million is the net funding shortfall for the next six months (October 2019 – March 2020).

Operational Updates

• In September, WFP reached 851,879 girls, boys, women and men across 31 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, distributed 8,447 mt of food through its partners and transferred US$939,361 to food insecure families.

• This included emergency food assistance and cash trasfers to 167,010 people including both conflict-(62,038) and drought-affected (104,972) people in 14 provinces. 130,732 of these received cash-based transfers in Balkh, Faryab and Takhar provinces after registration in SCOPE, WFP’s beneficiary information and transfer management system. In addition, 980 returnees from Iran and Pakistan, and 1,169 people affected by flooding received in-kind food assistance.

• WFP dispatched food to provide seasonal support to 200,340 highly vulnerable people in five provinces: Faryab, Ghazni, Ghor, Khost and Maidan Wardak. With the end of the drought response in June 2019, WFP is now focusing on delivering in-kind food assistance to communities in provinces that were not selected for the drought response and are both hard-to-reach and have high levels of food insecurity.

• In provinces with high rates of moderate acute malnutrition, WFP supplied health centres and partners with 863 mt of specialised nutritious foods for 173,339 children aged 6-59 months and 76,985 pregnant and lactating women. Some 6,159 children received specialised nutritious foods as part of general food distributions to prevent the deterioration of their nutritional status.

• Under WFP’s school feeding programme, 77,677 primary school students received high energy biscuits each day at school. Among them, 49,326 girls also received vegetable oil to take home for themselves and their families to encourage school attendance and reduce gender disparity.

• The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) transported 2,095 passengers from 104 different agencies and organisations to 20 locations in Afghanistan. Since January, UNHAS has transported 19,044 passengers, a 10 percent increase compared to the same period in 2018.