Through its Feed the Future initiative, the United States is providing support to a region with chronic food shortages and life-threatening malnutriton.
KAMPALA - The United States of America is to give more than US$9 million to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in support of refugees, as well as malnourished children and other vulnerable groups in the Karamoja region. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will make the contribution on behalf of the American people .
"This contribution will assist refugees in the west and the most vulnerable in Karamoja," said USAID/Uganda Mission Director David Eckerson. "USAID is considering how additional support can be provided to further reduce the need of emergency feeding in the Karamoja region." The United States supports WFP in line with the Obama administration's Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative – "Feed the Future" – as well as WFP's own global strategy. Feed the Future strengthens strategic coordination to mobilize and align the resources of diverse partners and stakeholders – including the international community, the private sector, and civil society. It leverages the benefits of institutions such as WFP, to address both the immediate and longer-term impacts of hunger. Feed the Future is designed to reduce hunger and poverty through a comprehensive approach that accelerates agricultural-led growth, reduces undernutrition, and increases the impact of humanitarian food assistance.
WFP, through relief and nutrition programmes complements its expanded Karamoja Productive Assets Program, which continues to assist the Government of Uganda in finding lasting solutions to vulnerability and hunger in the region. Channeled through the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund II, the assets programme encourages able-bodied heads of households to engage in building community assets that can strengthen livelihoods. This will help communities to overcome hunger and dependency on food assistance.
The U.S. Government is the largest funder of the Purchase for Progress initiative, a development programme that allows WFP to invest in agricultural and market support to help smallholder farmer groups access quality grain markets in Uganda and beyond.