Japan Donates US$25 Million To Support WFP In Yemen, Enough To Feed More Than One Million
SANA’A – The United Nations World Food Programme welcomed today a US$25 million donation from the Government of Japan, which will provide enough funds to deliver vital food and nutritional assistance to more than one million people in Yemen for six months.
The donation will be used to purchase 29,000 metric tons wheat, wheat flour, beans and vegetable oil for distribution to a range of people in need, including food insecure households, Yemenis displaced from their homes by conflict, and young mothers and children threatened with malnutrition.
“We are extremely grateful for this substantial and timely donation,” said WFP Country Director Lubna Alaman during a ceremony at a WFP warehouse in Sana’a, surrounded by ceiling-high stacks of wheat donated by Japan. “It comes at a critical moment in the transition process in Yemen, when sizeable contributions like this will help to stabilize a situation currently under great stress because of pressing humanitarian needs.”
Echoing a similar view, Japanese Ambassador Katsuyoshi Hayashi said: “The Government of Japan is eager to contribute to alleviating the suffering caused by food shortages across Yemen, which are occurring at a very critical juncture in the transition. We hope this new food assistance will contribute to a stabilization of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen and ensure the success of the transitional process that the Yemeni people are witnessing.”
Yemen’s Minister of Planning and International Co-operation Mohamed Saeed Al-Sa’adi, who was also present at the ceremony, thanked the Government of Japan, noting that “the people of Japan have consistently been among the most generous supporters of the people of Yemen. Year after year, they have proved their willingness to offer help when it is most needed.”
Japan is the largest single donor to date of WFP’s activities in Yemen this year. The US$25 million donation, which comes on the heels of a US$ 14.6 million contribution in 2012, will be used to help support WFP’s year-long US$ 242 million emergency operation. The operation targets three main areas: emergency food assistance to 3.5 million food insecure people and cash transfers for another 400,000; food assistance to 600,000 internally displaced people; and nutritional support for 405,000 children under five and 157,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women. As of early April, the operation was 48 percent funded.
Globally, Japan is WFP’s fourth largest single donor. In March, the Japanese Government announced a US$140.7 million donation to support WFP activities in 16 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, including Yemen.
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WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. Each year WFP feeds more than 90 million people in more than 70 countries.
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For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):
Barry Came, WFP/Sana’a, Tel. +967 -1-214100 ext . 2111, Mob. +967 736649118