global hunger

A long dry spell in the El Chaco region of southern Bolivia has decimated maize harvests, threatening an entire culture of indigenous corn growers with destitution. As thousands sell their land and move to the cities, WFP is helping to make staying on their farms a real option.

“There is a triple threat unfolding as this crisis widens and deepens,” said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran on Tuesday after visiting one of the areas of Pakistan hit by devastating flooding. She called on the world to support Pakistan through the current crisis.

Amid growing concerns about disease and malnutrition among the millions of Pakistanis displaced by catastrophic flooding, WFP is providing nutritious ready-to-use foods designed to stem child malnutrition. The province of Sindh – which already had some of the worst nutrition indicators before the disaster – is particularly at risk.

As millions of flood victims across Pakistan struggle to feed their children, the country's already high levels of malnutrition risk climbing above the emergency threshold. A nutritionist in southern Sindh province, Bilan Osmanjama explains what’s being done to keep this epic natural disaster from becoming a child-hunger crisis.

WFP’s Marco Frattini visits Punjab, “the land of five rivers,” where epic floods have laid waste to millions of acres of farmland. While there he meets Moreed, whose family is waiting for the waters to recede in a tent on the side of the road. They’re among millions in Pakistan surviving on food aid from WFP. Watch video

Oscar Rosana, a logistics officer from Nairobi, came to Pakistan two weeks before the floods broke out, sparking a humanitarian emergency. When the waters engulfed two key warehouses, a routine assignment turned into a race against time to salvage desperately needed food stores.

After floodwaters washed over her home in the Sindh district of southern Pakistan, Menaz and her family sought refuge in the Sukkur camp for flood victims where WFP is providing them with nutritionally enriched wheat to make bread, oil, and high-energy biscuits tailored to her children’s nutritional needs.

As floodwaters continue to wreak havoc across Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of people have been cut off from help. WFP is stepping up airlifts of food and supplies to help these isolated communities and is bringing in more helicopters.

“We never knew this rain would render us homeless – we are literally left with nothing,” says Shabbi Ahmed, a father of nine forced to flee the worst floods anyone in Punjab can remember. WFP is providing food to several thousand families like his while they wait for the waters to recede.

As a teenager, Jan Delbaere decided he wanted to do something about hunger and poverty. Now he’s a food security analyst working in some of the toughest humanitarian situations to determine what WFP can do to help. On World Humanitarian Day, August 19, we recognize the work of Jan and thousands of other aid workers like him.