Attachments
In Numbers
8.828 mt food assistance distributed
US$ 139,090 cash-based transfers made
US$ 462,921 six-month (August 2021 – January 2022) net funding requirements
60,655 people assisted in JULY 2021
Operational Updates
Despite the challenging COVID-19 situation that continued to affect WFP operations in July, leading to suspension of some of the programme activities, WFP assisted 60,655 people including 17,791 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo with food and cash assistance; 12,490 people through nutrition improvement interventions; 15,465 smallholder farmers through smallholder resilience and recovery interventions; and 15,000 people through social protection and capacity-strengthening activities. While providing assistance to the targeted populations, WFP continued to apply the programme criticality priorities established in 2020 to guide continuity in programme implementation, observing preventive measures particularly at community level in the operational areas.
During the period under review, WFP held an official event to launch the Maano Virtual Farmers Market (VFM) mobile application, an e-commerce platform that enables smallholder farmers and buyers to exchange market information and trade surplus commodities. The platform, developed with support from Digital PayGO, a locally contracted financial service provider, provides opportunities for smallholder farmers to discover market prices, have access to market information and sell their produce at premium prices through automated escrow payment systems that are linked to mobile money providers and commercial banks. Smallholder farmers and commodity buyers in Zambia can now download/access the app online or through Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code through local mobile network providers. By July, over 1,000 smallholder farmers and commodity buyers were using the app in Southern, Eastern, Central and Western provinces of Zambia. WFP assisted 5,101 (2,856 men and 2,245 women) smallholder farmers by introducing the VFM app features.
In July, WFP continued to provide remote technical support to eight districts where the Ministry of General Education (MoGE) with WFP support deployed the Food Tracking System (FTS). The FTS is a web-based platform developed for MoGE to track the movement of commodities from procurement to consumption, ensuring improved commodity accountability in the HGSM programme. WFP supported MoGE to roll out the FTS in 80 schools in eight districts thus far, out of the targeted 120 schools in 12 districts. WFP continued to work with the MoGE to promote the production and consumption of diverse nutritious foods in schools by setting up hydroponics gardens.
WFP supported the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) to finalize the development of the food processing and preservation manual and training cards for smallholder farmers. The materials were developed as part of efforts to enhance nutrition in the communities by promoting the processing and preservation of locally available nutritious foods, and ensuring the availability of diverse foods beyond the harvest season. The developed materials will be validated virtually in Eastern, Central, Southern and Western provinces in August 2021, and will be disseminated nationwide.
On Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) activities in the 17 operational districts, WFP in collaboration with the Government through MoA and Ministry of Community Development and Social Services, National Food and Nutrition Commission, FAO and UNICEF worked to finalize the district nutrition plans by including activities around women empowerment, postharvest loss management, food processing and preservation, and the SUN Business Network (SBN) decentralization activities. In the past months, WFP has been facilitating Training of Trainers (ToTs) for provincial and district staff from MoA, MCDSS, and the cooperating partners (Care International and iDE) aimed at strengthening the staff’s capacities in implementing financial empowerment for women, food preservation and post-harvest management activities under SUN II. The trained staff will cascade the same trainings to camp extension staff and targeted beneficiaries including smallholder farmers through producer groups, pregnant and lactating women and adolescent girls.