In Numbers
431.894 mt food assistance distributed
US$ 3.3 million cash-based transfers made between January and September 2020
US$ 3.1 million six-month (October 2020–March 2021) net funding requirements
95,384 people assisted in September 2020
Operational Updates
• WFP provides social safety nets for 55,000 orphans and vulnerable children under 5 years at 1,700 Neighbourhood Care Points (NCPs) in Eswatini through access to food and basic social services.
• WFP works with the Government in implementing a sustainable, nutrition-sensitive, shock-responsive national school meals programme. The pilot for a Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) project started in September 2019, targeting 50 schools and 24,392 students. WFP works with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to empower local smallholder farmers to provide schoolchildren with food that is safe, diverse, nutritious and local.
• WFP, through the local purchase programme, is supporting the Government in linking smallholder production to the school feeding programme under HGSF programme.
Seventeen smallholder farmer organizations with a membership of 653 individual farmers (62 percent female) were registered, with a target to supply 878 mt of maize and 235 mt of beans. In addition to the distribution of commodity bags, WFP supported the famer organizations in the aggregation, stitching and sampling of the commodities.
• WFP, together with Ministry of Education and Trainings (MoET), and FAO conducted a joint visit to 3 farmer organizations and 1 school under the HGSF initiative. The farmer organizations, Executive Committee, Extension Officer, farmers and headteacher interacted with senior management from MoET and WFP to share their experiences (tonnage supplied, benefits and challenges) under the HGSF pilot programme since its inception in 2019.
• WFP continues to collaborate with the Ministry of Health (MoH), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), the Ministry of Tinkhundla and Administration (MTAD), and the Swaziland Network of Young Positives (SYNP+) to conduct integrated treatment literacy activities to empower communities through better nutrition, uptake of and adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and tuberculosis (TB) medication, and sexual and reproductive health services. WFP, through SNYP+ and Membatsise Home-Based Care, has also supported 23 young people (4 males and 19 females) living with HIV through livelihood activities (poultry and gardening).