Cash-strapped WFP suspends food aid for 1.7 million Syrian refugees

Up to 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt will temporarily have no access to food assistance after the World Food Program failed to secure enough funds to continue its operations in December, the U.N. agency announced Monday. WFP needs $64 million to provide the refugees with food vouchers, and explained it can resume the program immediately as soon as it receives the money from donors. If not, the consequences will be severe as we are in the middle of winter, Ertharin Cousin, the U.N. agency’s executive director, said in an appeal to donors. Cousin also warned that a suspension of WFP food assistance “will endanger the health and safety of these refugees and will potentially cause further tensions, instability and insecurity in the neighboring host countries” and “be disastrous for many already suffering families.” The situation is particularly dire in Lebanon and Jordan, where “many children are barefoot and without proper clothing … tents are drenched in mud and hygiene conditions are growing extremely precarious,” WFP said in the statement. WFP started distributing food vouchers for Syrian refugees in mid-2013. After successful trials first in Turkey and later Lebanon, the U.N. agency decided to expand the mobile-based scheme for all its food assistance operations for Syrians fleeing the ongoing conflict in their own country, arguing that this cash transfer system is ideal to tackle hunger where there is food but the beneficiaries can’t afford it, on top of reducing transport and storage stocks, offering more choice and variety than traditional food aid programs, and benefiting local economies. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the top donor for WFP’s response to the Syrian crisis both inside and out of the country, lamented the suspension but pointed out that its own budget is frozen until a new U.S. fiscal year 2015 appropriations bill or a continuing resolution is passed by Congress. Once that happens, the agency “looks forward to providing additional support to WFP for this response,” USAID Spokesperson Matt Herrick said in a statement, adding that “given the level of global crises, it is absolutely essential for the entire global community to step forward” and called on all donors to step forward now “to avert lapses in this critical aid." Read more international development news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive the latest from the world’s leading donors and decision-makers — emailed to you FREE every business day.