By a Staff Reporter

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said this week that it cannot respond to increasing hunger resulting from drought in southern Ethiopia. Due to funding shortfalls, WFP says it had less food in its warehouses than it needed, and as of the end of last month, it was forced to scale back food assistance to beneficiaries in drought-affected areas.

WFP said that despite evidence of malnutrition in some drought areas, a food deficit would prevent the agency from providing nutritious life-saving food supplements to all of the acutely malnourished children and mothers on its Targeted Supplementary Food (TSF) Programme. TSF provides a special fortified food that facilitates rehabilitation of malnourished children and mothers.

In 2007, the TSF Programme assisted over 1.1 million beneficiaries. This year, WFP had to cut back the number of districts where TSF was operational from 342 to 163, leaving malnourished mothers and children in many areas with no assistance.

"This scaling back of support during a drought threatens to de-rail the Government's successful strategies for combating food insecurity in Ethiopia," said Mohamed Diab, WFP's Country Director in Ethiopia. "Just when the needs are greatest WFP's resources are dwindling. It is critical that the important achievements already made to promote pro-poor economic development in Ethiopia are secured through continued funding and support."

The recently launched Ethiopian Government and Partners Joint Document called for USD 13.7 million to assist some 238,500 mothers and children under five living in areas worst affected by drought through WFP's Targeted Supplementary Programme. Some 13,285 metric tons of nutritious food supplements is required.

But the organization said it urgently needed a further USD 28 million to assist malnourished mothers and children who lived outside the immediate drought stricken areas. In addition, WFP faced a shortfall of USD 48.4 million to support the government's emergency relief programme.

WFP said it remained concerned over serious gaps in meeting other food assistance requirements, particularly as the number of people suffering from drought and harvest failure might increase over the next few months.

WFP's TSF Programme was a unique programme designed to comprehensively address the immediate and partially underlying causes of malnutrition through improved access to basic health services, maternal and child care practices and nutritious food, through the provision of targeted supplementary food rations.

"We have ensured that those areas with the highest levels of malnutrition will still be covered under the TSF initiative," said Mohamed Diab. "Obviously this scaling down is a measure of last resort and rather disheartening particularly when the TSF programme had already demonstrated positive impact as a life-saving intervention" Diab added.

"However, we are confident that pledges and contributions will come from our donors and partners, who all understand the gravity of this situation," Diab continued.

In 2007, 58,823 metric tons of nutritious food was provided by WFP and partners to TSF programme beneficiaries.