Attachments
Overview
During 2022, high political tensions negatively affected the socioeconomic environment and led to continuous social unrest in Peru. Although employment continued to rise, the quality of jobs and the purchasing power of wages were still far from their pre-pandemic level, contributing to widespread food insecurity among national and migrant population alike.
In this context. WFP further consolidated its role as one of Peru's most relevant cooperation actors by providing direct emergency food assistance to food-insecure populations combined with evidence-based strategic advice to enhance national policies related to food security and nutrition, emergency preparedness and response and social protection, and their implementation.
In 2022, WFP assisted 147,872 direct beneficiaries nationwide [1]. This included 137,682 migrants from Venezuela [2] supported with food assistance delivered through cash-based transfers (CBT) complemented with nutritional counselling. This included migrants already residing in the country along with in-transit-migrants assisted at border checkpoints.
Furthermore, WFP conducted a CBT pilot to support the dire needs of urban poor self-organized around community-led food canteens in Lima and Callao [3]. This included the provision of kitchen equipment and cooking utensils, nutrition education, and logistics support to link them with a food rescue operation through which they received 2,822 mt of quality fresh foods.
WFP also provided logistics support for the national humanitarian supply chain to respond to emergencies, transporting 6,492 mt of food and non-food items, 16 percent more than its target for this year. This was closely coordinated with 13 humanitarian partners, including the National Institute of Civil Defence, the Food Bank of Peru and the Lima Foundation, which works closely on social aid activities with the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima [4].
WFP’s strategic advice greatly contributed to improving nutrition, social protection and risk management public policies. For instance, through specific local interventions, WFP proved that reducing anaemia is possible even in a context of economic stress. This model was shared with the Government and continuous technical assistance was given to promote national ownership and support its scale-up.
In an effort to promote the Law of Local Procurement and Family Farming [5], WFP actively advocated for the introduction of fresh foods from local farmers into school menus. As a result, WFP will support the implementation of a government-led pilot in 2023. Likewise, following the approval of the Rice Fortification Law [6], WFP worked with government partners and industry representatives to design and implement an action plan to increase the supply and demand of fortified rice.
Furthermore, as Peru is highly prone to natural hazards and disasters, WFP supported the Government in the design of an agenda to institutionalize shock response mechanisms in the national social protection system.
All these efforts were possible thanks to the committed and sustained support from government partners, United Nation agencies and the Peruvian private sector. As in the previous year, WFP fully integrated gender and age across its operations.
As 2022 marked the end of WFP’s Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2018-2022, the country office conducted an evaluation of its CSP that confirmed the key role WFP plays as the Government’s strategic ally and partner of choice for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG); notably, SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) [7].
The CSP evaluation also highlighted WFP’s innovative and creative facilitation of public-private partnerships along with its agility, responsiveness, and adaptiveness to meet emerging needs and optimize opportunities. The findings and recommendations informed the design of the new CSP 2023-2026 that was approved by the Executive Board in November 2022.