News

WFP moves into reconstruction phase

BANGKOK - With the tsunami-struck countries in Asia moving into the reconstruction phase the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is launching a series of post-emergency humanitarian activities that will help hundreds of thousands of survivors return to a stable, productive and independent way of life, a WFP news release said.

Just over two months after the 26 December 2004 disaster, WFP is starting food-for-work projects in Mayanmar to help people rebuild their communities.

In both Sri Lanka and Indonesia, WFP has mapped out a strategy for providing nutritious food to the most vulnerable members of the population - orphans, widows, mothers who are the heads of their households, the elderly, the disabled, pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants and schoolchildren.

"This is where the real work begins," said Kenro Oshidari, WFP Deputy Regional Director for Asia. "Just because this story has disappeared from television screens, it doesn't mean that the problem has gone away. In reality it won't take weeks or even months but years for many of these communities to recover."

This weekend the focus will be on "Rebuilding After the Tsunami" at a fund-raising ruby match to be held at the home of English rugby in Twickenham. The match was arranged by WFP's partner, the International Rugby Board and will pit star players from the northern hemisphere against their southern foes.

It will be broadcast live to millions of people in more than a dozen countries. Proceeds from the "Rugby Aid" match will fund long-term reconstruction in areas worst affected by the tsunami.

In January WFP launched a six-months US$256 million emergency operation for two million people affected by the tsunami. Reconstruction activities incorporated into the emergency are already under way.

Some 7,000 people in Myanmar's Irrawaddy Division are constructing 230 water ponds for crop irrigation, six kilometers of village roads and two wooden bridges destroyed by the tsunami. In return they are getting four months' supply of rice, cooking oil and beans.

In the southern Kawathaung district near the Thai border, WFP is giving the same ration to 1,000 people who are rebuilding access roads and rehabilitating sea dykes damaged by the waves.

In Sri Lanka, WFP will start a school feeding programme in April for 120,000 children, who will get a nutritious snack in school. This is in addition to the 165,000 children who were already enrolled in school feeding before the tsunami.

And in order to prevent malnutrition, WFP will begin distributing corn-soya blended food to 200,000 "vulnerable group" members and to 112,000 mothers and infants. In May or June, WFP will assist 277,000 people to rebuild roads and other local infrastructure in the affected areas.

Also in Sri Lanka, WFP will work in partnership with other groups like the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to help people clear debris from their land, rebuild their houses and resume their fishing activities by providing boats and nets.

WFP and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) carried out a joint livelihoods and food security assessment in January which indicated that before the disaster, some 37 percent of households in the area relied on fishing for a living. Now that figure is only one percent.