Attachments
In Numbers
695 MT of food assistance distributed
US$ 845,500 cash-based transfers made
US$ 16.6m six months net funding requirements, representing 62 percent of total requirements for the next six months (December 2019-May 2020).
216,100 people assisted In November 2019
Operational Updates
• Food and Nutrition Assistance: WFP provided food and nutritional assistance to 216,100 beneficiaries including 134,900 Congolese and Burundian refugees living in six refugee camps, and 81,200 primary school children from 104 schools located in the most food insecure areas.
• Home-Grown School Feeding: WFP participated in the home-grown school feeding (HGSF) programme steering committee chaired by the Permanent Secretary of Rwanda’s Ministry of Education. Committee members agreed to establish a national technical working group to ensure coordination among different government institutions, private sector and development partners. During the steering committee, WFP noted its readiness to support the integration of school feeding indicators into the national school data management system, the use of iron-fortified beans in the school feeding programme, and the development of a nutritious menu for private and boarding schools.
• Nutrition: WFP supported the National Early Childhood Development Programme (NECDP) through a training of trainers for health care professionals to enhance capacity in four districts on maternal, infant and young child nutrition to address issues of stunting. A subsequent cascade training has been planned for December, which will target community health workers, together with the roll out of the innovative “length mat” to support the tracking of linear growth among infants and young children at the village level for early detection of growth faltering and stunting.
• The first phase of collaboration led by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on the Smart Simplicity approach to accelerate the reduction of stunting ended after successfully modelling the concept of ‘stunting-free villages’ which included the roll out of innovative tools and recommendations to strengthen existing nutrition programmes, including enhanced use of data to inform counselling, and patient follow up. WFP together with BCG, One UN and NECDP will continue to explore funding opportunities to scale-up the results of this initial phase.
• Smallholder Agricultural Market Support: WFP signed a memorandum of understanding with Kilimo Trust, a regional organisation working on agriculture to continue supporting the government’s strategy to commercialize the smallholder agricultural sector and enhance market linkages, primarily for beans. Two WFP-supported cooperatives were also linked to a private sector buyer offering premium prices for high quality beans.