ISLAMABAD: World Food Organization (WFP) has distributed almost US $ 10.8 million among flood affectees including US $ 4.7 million under Food For Work (FFW) and US $6.1 million under Food For Cash (FFC) program to improve community infrastructure and rehabilitate their livelihoods.
In FATA, most of the cereals distributed were provided in-kind as part of the generous Government's contribution of 150,000 metric tons of wheat to WFP in 2013, said a news release issued here on Tuesday.
During last year community recovery and disaster risk reduction activities of United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) were implemented in partnership with the Government of Pakistan.
Non-Government Organizations partners and communities themselves to ensure community resilience to cope with recurrent shocks in nine disaster-prone districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Balochistan and six agencies in FATA.
Naseer, who participated in one of the work schemes in Jaffarabad, Balochistan, sharing his view said, "We worked on the rehabilitation of a water channel in our village for which we received a cash incentive from WFP.
Cash gives us freedom to choose what they buy, whether it's various foods or other items such as clothes, medicines or books for the children, he said.
Mainly the effects of unprecedented floods of 2010 and 2011 in Pakistan disrupted livelihoods and diminished people's capacity to recover from shocks.
The projects also comprise of a training element to improve agricultural practices and production as well as post-harvest techniques with view to achieving sustainable food security.
Similarly, WFP's capacity development activities included the implementation of a broad range of training opportunities such as on community preparedness, early warning, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
Furthermore, national disaster management counterparts responsible for coordinating post-crisis relief and recovery were provided technical and material support.
Sukhan, a trainee from Shikarpur, Sindh, commented, "During the first month, we were trained for 12 days on how to cope during natural disasters, and then on vegetable production after which I planted my own land. In the third training, we were taught how to keep the environment clean and how to disinfect the place where our animals stay."
WFP aims to assist 8.3 million people between 2013 and 2015 at a total cost of US$ 535 million seeking, amongst others, to improve economic opportunities and promote social inclusion in FATA, boost community resilience in disaster-prone areas, and address nutrition and education in the country.
Comments
Comments are closed.