In Numbers
140 mt of food assistance distributed (in February)
USD 38,144 Cash based transfers made USD
2,452,709 six months (March-August 2018) net funding requirements
122,228 people assisted in FEBRUARY 2018
Operational Updates
• An European Union (EU) mission trainee team visited Farafenni Lower Basic School on 21 February 2018. The visiting team comprises of six students from the EU headquarters in Brussels and two staff from the Gambia country office. The students are on familiarization tour of EU projects in the country. Farafenni lower basic school has been supported by the school meals programme since the 1970s. The school is the second most populated school in the region with enrolment of 1,977 students.
• The plan to implement a mixed school meals model has commenced. One region covering 103 schools will be included, and schools will be supplied with four dry rations plus cash to buy five other perishable items, bringing the local basket to nine commodities. The concept is built around home-grown school meals approach with five of the food commodities derived locally from smallholder farmers. Also, implementation will enlist partnership of civil society organizations. A total of 32,353 children are planned to benefit from the scheme, 18 percent of which are under 5 and up to 50 percent are girls.
• In February, 2,944 children aged 6-59 months received specialised nutritious foods to treat malnutrition, and 6,485 pregnant and lactating women received Super Cereals and sugar as supplementary feeding against malnutrition in all the four targeted regions of the EU-funded nutrition project.
• Annual food procurement plan for 2018 has been updated. An agreement has been signed for the purchase of 152.98 mt of local beans from smallholder farmers. The annual non-food items procurement plan for 2018 has also been finalized.