Highlights
· Scale up of food assistance continues to help households meet food needs during the lean season.
· Use of cash based transfers expands, providing stimulus to local markets and greater choice for beneficiaries.
WFP’s Activities
Deteriorating food and nutrition security, driven by high food prices and the declining economic situation, has been widely witnessed, with Northern & Western Bahr el Ghazal and Eastern Equatoria being the main geographic areas exhibiting the most rapid decline. WFP is allocating additional resources to scale up food assistance through the lean season, supporting households to meet their basic food needs until the next harvest period. At the same time, cash for assets payments are being brought forward to help households meet their food needs through this period, while protecting outputs.
Scale up of cash based transfers (CBT) in Mingkaman has now reached approximately 75 percent of the food basket, with the remaining portion of the food basket provided as in-kind support. The use of CBTs has helped to increase cost efficiencies, mainly driven by the adoption of a market aligned transfer value, and provides a stimulus to local markets. For example, in the Protection of Civilian (PoC) site, where markets were previously limited, CBTs resulted in traders setting up outlets where beneficiaries are able to redeem their transfers. The development of these markets has also increased employment, creating job opportunities for about 800 people.
WFP is exploring the possibility of expanding the use of CBTs to Makpandu refugee camp (Yambio) which will give beneficiaries greater choice over the foods they buy, aligning food assistance more with household food preferences. Post distribution monitoring has shown that the use of a combined ration including in-kind food and CBTs leads to improved household dietary diversity and food consumption outcomes.
In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, WFP is supporting the provision of deworming tablets to school children combined with food for education (FFE) in targeted schools. This initiative is part of an ‘essential package’ of complementary interventions which aim to strengthen the nutrition and education benefits of the FFE programme.