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Overview
In order for the lifesaving humanitarian needs for refugees and asylum seekers to be met, the Food Security Sector intends to improve access to adequate nutritious foods. This is being achieved through providing general food assistance and complimentary activities. WFP and Cooperating Partners are supporting over 1.3 million refugees and asylum seekers living in settlements and reception centers with monthly life-saving food assistance through cash or food transfers. This represents over 87 per cent of the overall refugee population in Uganda.
During the reporting period, WFP provided assistance to 1,379,148 beneficiaries across all the 13 refugee settlements. Of these, 599,416 received in-kind assistance, and 779,732 received cash-based transfers. In response to the refugee influx, WFP, in collab- oration with UNHCR and implementing partners provided hot meals to over 45,000 asylum seekers in the transit and reception centres. WFP and Partners also provided nutrition assistance through the targeted supplementary feeding programme, as well as the maternal, child health & nutrition programme, for treatment and prevention of malnutrition respectively. Results in Q1 indicate that in all settlements, the recovery rates were greater than 75 per cent, which is the minimum set target in the Integrated Manage- ment of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM) guidelines. Financially inclusive cash transfer mechanisms continue to be scaled up . By end of Q1, 603,960 refugees (77 per cent) had received their cash assistance through agent banking. The agent banking network expand- ed from seven to eight settlements with a corresponding increase in bank agents from 219 in the last quarter of 2021, to 255 in this quarter. Of these, 36 are female agents and 219 are male agents. There are on-going efforts with other stakeholders to increase enrolment of women as agents, through the digital financial inclusion for women economic empowerment programme. In order to optimize the utilization of resources provided to refugees in form of Cash-Based Transfers, WFP continues to support financial literacy trainings. By end of Q1, the trainings had reached over 58,000 cash beneficiaries across 11 settlements. Out of these, 56 per cent are females and 44 per cent are males.
In Uganda, the local market prices of the items provided through the General Food Assistance (GFA) commodity basket have increased significantly in 2022 (ref. VAM/Refugee Market Monitor). High food prices have eroded the effective purchasing power parity of the WFP transfer value, and recipients of WFP’s cash assistance have merely been able to buy a fraction of the equivalent minimum GFA food basket. As a direct result of inflation, WFP cash beneficiaries can no longer purchase the equivalent in-kind ration - even at reduced and prioritized rations - that WFP intends to provide with currently available and projected resources. The reduced purchasing power of the current cash transfer value compromises beneficiaries’ ability to access food and poses a risk of worsening food security and nutrition status. However, WFP currently does not have the resources to make these operational adjustments. At reduced and prioritized rations, WFP currently requires approximately US$ 41.9 million to provide cash assistance from June 2022 – December 2022, with a current shortfall of about US$ 33 million. Therefore , current focus is on advocacy for sufficient funding to continue providing general food assistance.