Kids in Ghana - Smiles worth a thousand words

Two weeks ago, we were driving in a remote ares, near Jirapa, on Ghana's North-East border with Burkina Faso. As we slowed down to negotiate a series of mudholes, I saw a car coming from the other side with a familiar emblem on the side. I waved them to stop.

They were a WFP team on their way to check one of their school feeding programmes. I guess they were as surprised to see me there, as I was to meet them, in the middle of nowhere.

We followed them to the school, and took the opportunity to shoot some pictures and do a video interview with the school in the background.

Some of the pictures. I just loved their smiles...

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The unreality of an emergency

It is hard to imagine, but we put up our office next to this pool in a Santo Domingo hotel.



From the 'pingpong room', which the hotel converted into an open office space for about 80 people, we manage the transport of aid cargo for most relief agencies into Haiti.



With a 180 degree view of people sitting by the pool, sipping drinks, in one month, we coordinated the offloadeding of 90 cargo planes and a dozen sea vessels. We dispatched 514 trucks from Santo Domingo to Haiti, carrying a total of 1,658 tons of food aid (that is right, 1.6 million kgs) and some 10,000 m³ of other relief goods, from 46 different aid organizations.

As we also run the aid flights from the Dominican Republic into Haiti with four helicopters, two cargo and two passenger planes, we transported 1,650 passengers from 250 different organizations from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince.

The funny thing is that you can't see through the office windows from the outside... So yesterday we had this girl in bikini pacing to and fro in front of the window, talking on her mobile...



It was funny to hear the people in the office on the phone talking about truck dispatches, the offloading of containers, while this little lady was standing with her back against the window...

Ah.. sometimes pleasures can be found in simple things in life...

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Aid, logistics, helicopters and Haiti

Last week, we flew with a team from the government to Jimani, Barahona and Cabo Rojo to check out the condition at the main border crossing between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and two airstrips - one of which we already use as a contingency base. In view of the amount of aid (food, shelter, sanitation equipment, medicins,...) which is moved into Haiti, the logistics aspect, one of the areas we are responsible for, is critical. While things are very busy - to say the least - at this moment, in my view, the peak of the movement of goods still has to come, at the time we are shifting from emergency response to basic reconstruction.

In many aspects, for the Haiti operation, the logistics of the aid operation will determine the success of the relief efforts.

For last Sunday's assessment mission, we used one of the MI-171 helicopters we have deployed in the Haiti operations. We have four helicopters, two cargo planes and two passengers planes which ferry mostly people, but also urgent or fragile cargo between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

On the way back from the mission, the pilot followed the Southern coast of the Dominican Republic, from the Haiti border up to halfway to Santo Domingo. The views were astonishing, and in sharp contrast with the devastation in Haiti.

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Assessment trip to the Haiti border area

Two weeks ago, we got news of two small camps forming just across the border, in Haiti. These were mostly people treated at a hospital, and their relatives, both of which were in dire need of aid.

Food aid is not just a question of "dropping food rations", but also ensuring the rations are adequate, appropriate, and can be distributed so those who are in need are actually served. A minimum provision of basic security has to be in place to ensure safety of the beneficiaries, and of those handing out the food aid.

So before we could move food aid in, we needed to see for ourselves and make the arrangements how we could store the food near the camps, who would distribute it, and what rations were needed, for how long and with what frequency they needed to be replenished.

We got the call for help on a Wednesday evening. On the Thursday we flew with a helicopter to Jimani, and drove over the border to discuss the plan of action with the people managing the camps.

Luckily, the type of rations they needed were available in our warehouse in Jimani, and on the Friday, the first food distribution was done.

Here is a short video showing the helicopter take off from a grass field behind the local military outpost.



Since then, we have regular food distributions in those camps. We transport the aid to Jimani, and the distribution is done by Worldvision, one of our implementing partners.

During most of the trips, I twitter pictures live via Shot from the Hip.

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Mother's Day: A day to honour ALL mums

May 10 is Mother's Day in many parts of the world. A day we give our mum some special attention, often in a way as a "thank you" for what they have passed on to us.

But let's think a bit wider. Mother's Day is an opportunity to honour all mums in the world. And the role of mothers in the world is nowhere as critical as in the developing countries. Let's think of those mothers also, on Mother's day. Think about some of the hard reality they are facing (Source):

• More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people in the world – around 580 million people – are women. (Source: FAO)
• Around 50% of pregnant women in developing countries are anaemic. Lack of iron increases the risk of death of the mother at delivery, accounting for at least 20% of maternal mortality. (Source: Kraemer, K. and Zimmermann, M.B. Nutritional Anaemia, Sight and Life, 2007)
• Women are the world’s primary food producers, yet cultural traditions and social structures often mean women are much more affected by hunger and poverty than men.
• In most developing countries women produce between 60 and 80% of food, but own less than 2% of the world’s titled land. (Source: Rural Development Institute)
• A mother will often be the last to eat – instead saving food for her children and other family members.

This is what I am doing:
- I am putting my mum's picture on WFP's Wall Against Hunger. (update: Here is my mum on The Wall! )
- I am mobilizing my fellow bloggers to put one of these banners on their blog, and to join the viral rally on Bloggers Unite.
- And.. I am putting the word out on my Twitter account

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Acute hunger spots in the world

Myanmar faces food shortages in many parts of the country, largely because of last year's cyclone Nargis destroyed most of the delta's harvest and a rat infestation wiped out most of the remaining crops.
A total of 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of rice paddy were submerged saltwater waves and 85 percent of seed stocks were destroyed. A shortage of labor - 130,000 were left dead after Nargis - higher fertilizer prices and lower rice prices have dissuaded delta farmers from planting, causing about 185,000 tons of emergency food aid needed this year. (Full)

There is a general alert going out for an upcoming wave of hunger due to a drought in the Horn of Africa:

In Uganda's Karamoja region 970,000 people are heading towards starvation. The Government declared the whole region as an emergency area and said "food must [quickly] be distributed to this area to avert this problem." Drought conditions will cause conditions unlikely to improve before October when the next harvest is due. (Full)

The same regional drought also hit Kenya hard. In the South-eastern regions, the third consecutive bad crop will force 3.2 million people to resort to food aid. (Full)

Since August last year, WFP, the UN's main food assistance agency, has lost 4 staff in Somalia due to security incidents. Last week they said if the situation does not improve, they will be forced to cut their food aid, which will affect 2.5 million people. (Full)

In Zimbabwe, the hunger figures are even worse. The prolonged political turmoil has turned Africa's former breadbasket into one of the continent's poorest countries. Currently 4.5 million Zimbabweans are fully dependent on food aid, a figure expected to raise to 6 million in the next month.
Due to lack of donor funding, WFP has been forced to cut core monthly maize rations from 10kg -already 2kg below the recommended ration- to 5kg a month for adults. That is just about 600 calories a day. (Full)

News discovered via NewsFeeds and AidNews.

Picture courtesy James Akena (WFP)

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How about the HUMAN rescue plan?

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Two colleagues killed in Somalia this week.

On January 6th, three masked gunmen shot and killed 44-year-old Somali national Ibrahim Hussein Duale, while he was monitoring school feeding in a WFP-supported school in Yubsan village six kilometres from the Gedo region capital of Garbahare. Witnesses say the gunmen approached him while he was seated, ordered him to stand up and then shot him.

Ibrahim leaves a wife and five children. He joined the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in 2006 as a food monitor in Gedo region, which borders on Kenya and Ethiopia. (Full)

Today, another colleague, Mohamud Omar Moallim, was shot by unidentified gunmen while distributing food to displaced people at Daynile, 6 miles northwest of Mogadishu.

The gunmen put Mohamud's body in a WFP vehicle and drove away, then pushed the corpse from the vehicle and drove on.

Mohamud joined WFP in 1993 and worked until 1995 as a logistics assistant. He rejoined the agency in May 2006 as a food monitor. He was abducted in September 2008 for 16 hours outside Mogadishu. He leaves two wives and 11 children.

In Somalia alone, four of our staff member were killed since August 2008 and another five WFP-contracted transport staff were killed since January 2008. (Full)

It is clear more and more humanitarians are being targeted, either by bandits or terrorists. Malicious acts include robbery, carjacking, hijacking, physical attacks and plain murder. The amount of victims amongst aidworkers reached record heights in 2007, a sad record broken only by the 2008 figures.

As a reference, Patronus Analytical is keeping track of security in the humanitarian world and in International Aidworkers Today I clip news articles about aidwork, and aidworkers.

Pictures courtesy WFP

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Goodbye to a friend.

We knew since a couple weeks Thomas was ill. But we did not know it was all going to be over this fast. Thomas passed away last Saturday.

It seems like just yesterday, we're standing by the pool in the back of the office, smoking a cigarette. And now he is no longer with us. The memories remain.

Safe journey, my friend. We mourn. But the memories still bring smiles on our faces.

Thomas Keuster with Spain's Queen Sofia
at the Wat Run primary school (Siem Reap, Cambodia)
earlier this year.

Update March 17 2009:
Posthumously, Thomas received the "Tun Myat Award for Excellence in Humanitarian Logistics" at a moving staff ceremony today.

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Rumble: Hunger - Time is running out

As a special Christmas gift, put a picture of those you love up on The Wall Against Hunger.

Source: WFP's Hungerbytes

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Rumble: Knowing when to duck

A report released by the UN last month documented 490 attacks on UN offices, convoys, and premises between July 2007 and June this year, resulting in the deaths of 26 staff.

At least 63 NGO (non-governmental organizations) aid workers were murdered during the same period. (Full)

WFP released this video showing the security challenges aid workers face:



More on The Road about aid workers

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News: NATO escorts food aid shipments to Somalia

I reported before about the logistical challenges to bring humanitarian aid to Somalia.

Since June 2005, when a vessel carrying food aid to Somalia for the World Food Programme (WFP) was hijacked, the issue of piracy in the Golf of Aden got international attention.
The hijackers demanded a ransom for the release of the ship, its crew and cargo. The ship was released after being held for 100 days. Following that incident other ships -commercial vessels, yachts and cruiseliners- have been under attack or were were hijacked. (More). Even today a Saudi oil tanker got hijacked by Somali pirates.

As the sea is one of the only means to have humanitarian aid reach Somalia, there is now no other alternative then to have NATO vessels escorting the relief shipments:



More posts on The Road about food aid, Somalia and WFP

Video courtesy WFP

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News: "Aid hampered in East Congo", but what does that really mean?

As civilians flee the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an increase in attacks on aid workers has left humanitarian organisations struggling to help them.

"We've got enough aid, but now the problem is access," said the OCHA office in Kinshasa, adding there have been 21 attacks on aid workers in Nord-Kivu since the fighting resumed. (Full).

While some aid agencies are hesitating to go into the most affected areas, several others are on the forefront. Check out this unedited video from WFP to understand what the situation is on the ground, and what it means when we say "We Provide Aid"... It is shot at a point while people were fleeing fighting in the surrounding hills:

More on The Road about Congo

Video courtesy WFP/Marcus Prior

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News: Situation worsens for Somali children

Few foreign governments have shown much interest in trying to end Somalia’s woes. Diplomats charged with trying to do so are frustrated and depressed.

Meanwhile the suffering is mounting. The UN reckons 3.2m Somalis now survive on food aid. (Full)



More posts on The Road about Somalia, Africa and WFP

Video courtesy Worldfocus

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News: When was the last time a UN agency got a "Business Innovation Award"?

The 2008 ICIS Award for "Best Business Innovation" was given to a joint initiative of the Dutch company DSM and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Together, they developed "MixMe" powder sachets to provide people in developing countries with micronutrients that can be mixed with food at home.

The food enriching micronutrient powder "MixMe" will enable the World Food Programme, the UN's frontline agency for hunger solutions, to bring better food assistance to the hungry poor.

In addition to the almost one billion people who are hungry there are close to another billion of people in this world who seem not to suffer from hunger at first glance but are suffering from a deficiency in micronutrients (the so-called "hidden hunger"). These people appear to have enough to eat, but often eat mainly carbohydrate rich foods such as rice or maize which do not provide the essential vitamins and minerals (micronutrients) needed for good health and therefore they develop all kinds of diseases such as anemia and blindness.

The "MixMe" "home food fortification" is a novel approach to the enrichment of food with micronutrients.

This year alone, the "MixMe" sachets will reach over 250,000 people in Nepal, Kenya and Bangladesh. WFP and DSM plan to substantially increase the coverage area in the coming years to reach millions of people. (Full)

More posts on The Road about food aid and hunger.

Picture courtesy Christian Farnsworth (WFP)

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News: Who is hungry on the World Food Day?

Tomorrow Oct 16 is the World Food Day, marking the "birthday" of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. FAO was the first agency created by the United Nations to address global hunger in 1945.

Did you know 25,000 people die every day from hunger and related causes? Not in 1945, but today!
Did you know 923 million people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union together?

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) continuously updates its World Hunger Map. On this interactive worldmap you can zoom into the hunger hotspots in the world, and find out the facts.

Did you know that out of the 69 million people in Ethiopia, there currently are 31.5 million (45%) undernourished?
Did you know 21% of Indians (221 million people!) are hungry?

Use The Global Hunger Index (GHI) from International Food Policy Research Institute to find out more.

This post is part of the Blog Action Day campaign inviting bloggers to publish posts about poverty today, October 15th.

More posts on The Road about poverty, development, hunger, WFP and foodaid.

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News: Josette Sheeran (WFP) on The Late Show

Josette Sheeran, the Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme on The Late Show with Dave Letterman.

More posts on The Road about the food crisis

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News: Can Bill Gates help Africa feed itself?

The injection of western food aid into poor countries is often criticized to be unfair competition for small farmers in those countries the international community is actually trying to help. The global food crisis rocketing the prices of basic food commodities, once again showed that the poorest in the world suffered the most, despite decades long efforts to eradicate hunger from the world.

Last week Bill Gates and Howard Buffett (Warren's oldest son) announced their private foundations will plow more than $75 million into helping small farmers in Africa and Latin America to sell their crops as food aid — a move which could potentially overhaul the decades-old global food aid system.

Under a five-year pilot project called Purchase for Progress, the foundations will help 350,000 small farmers in 21 countries, most of them in Africa, to grow food for the U.N.'s World Food Programme, the biggest food aid distributor in Africa. Rather than simply buying the farmers' crops outright, much of the money will go to teaching better farming methods, and to helping them store their crops in warehouses, plant higher-yield seeds, and transport their produce to customers.

With WFP as a guaranteed client, many poor farmers will be eligible for credit with which to buy seeds and fertilizer, and perhaps employ people to help harvest the crops. (Full)


More posts on The Road about poverty

Picture courtesy J.Hartley (WFP)

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Picture of the day: Gustav and Hanna causing havoc in Haiti

A flood victim carries a box of high energy biscuits he received from the World Food Program in a shelter as he wades through muddy water after Tropical Storm Hanna hit Gonaives, Haiti.
Hanna has killed at least 137 people in Haiti. (Full)

Update Sept 6: Meanwhile, tropical storm Ike, currently located in the West Atlantic, has reached a category three storm and is expected to hit the northern areas of Dominican Republic and Haiti on 07 September before following towards Cuba and Bahamas.


More Pictures of the day. More posts about Haiti

Picture courtesy AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos

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News: Five WFP drivers killed in Sudan

Five truck drivers delivering food for the U.N. World Food Program have been attacked and killed in Sudan over the past three weeks.
Four of the five were killed in southern Sudan and one was killed in the western Darfur region.
In the latest attack, two WFP-contracted drivers were shot dead in southern Sudan on Monday after returning from delivering food supplies.
Previously, three other WFP workers were killed in Sudan late March. (Full)

More posts on The Road, about Darfur and Sudan.

Update April 18 2008: "Attacks force U.N. to cut Darfur food relief": In the past three and a half months, 60 WFP-contracted food aid trucks have been hijacked in Darfur only. 39 trucks are still misssing and 29 drivers still unaccounted for.

Picture courtesy WFP

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