THE UNITED NATIONS WORLD FOOD

Published purpose

January 28, 2013 - Established in 1961, the World Food Programme (WFP) is the food assistance arm of the United Nations, and is the largest humanitarian organization fighting hunger in the world. WFP provides food assistance to vulnerable populations as a means of addressing hunger and global food insecurity. WFP has demonstrated knowledge and capacity to address the urgent food needs of vulnerable populations, and to contribute to fighting global hunger. Given WFP's presence and capacity, there are no other agencies that are able to perform the same functions on a similar scale as WFP. DFATD's funding is supporting WFP food assistance operations in various countries in the region of Western Africa and in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2013. For example, in Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger, WFP will provide targeted food and/or cash distributions for up to 335,000 Malian refugees and provide blanket supplementary feeding to prevent acute malnutrition among refugee children.