WFP

July 17, 2008 -- At the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome, the United States and more than 180 world leaders pledged to halve the total number of undernourished people worldwide from the 1990 level---a commitment that they reaffirmed in 2000 when they established the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which included a target to halve the proportion or the percentage of the world's population that is undernourished by 2015.    » read more »

03 July 2007 -- U.N. agencies say that Mozambique is undergoing a severe drought. They say hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people will need increased humanitarian assistance over the coming months to help them survive until next year's harvest in April.

Mozambique has been lurching from one natural disaster to another. The current drought follows heavy flooding and a devastating cyclone earlier this year. Those disasters affected hundreds of thousands of people. Homes, crops and livelihoods were destroyed.    » read more »

17 June 2007 -- The World Food Program says the tiny South African country of Lesotho needs urgent international assistance to prevent a major food crisis this year. A report by WFP and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization finds cereal prices in Lesotho have skyrocketed after this year's main cereal harvest was ravaged by one of the worst droughts in 30 years. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.    » read more »

22 May 2007 -- The World Food Program warns it could eventually face food shortages if threats of pirate attacks against its relief vessels persist. The WFP is renewing its appeal to Somali authorities to do whatever it takes to make sure these mercy ships gets safely into port.

Somali Transitional Federal Government soldiers control the crowd during the World Food Program distribution of food on the outskirt of Mogadishu, 20 May 2007    » read more »

03 May 2007 -- The World Food program says it is stepping up efforts to deliver food to thousands of people forced from their homes in Mogadishu by fighting between Somali insurgents and government forces backed by Ethiopian troops. All told, about 365,000 people have fled Mogadishu, and WFP officials say they expect the number of people needing food aid to rise to as many as 150,000. Lisa Schlein has more for VOA from Geneva.    » read more »