The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director Cindy McCain warned on Sunday that the aid agency could pull out of Afghanistan if it does not receive enough funding.
Earlier this month, the WFP said it “has been struggling to meet the global need for food assistance …. And for the first time ever, WFP has seen contributions decreasing while needs steadily increase.” The organization has already had to make “significant cuts in hot spots such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Jordan, Palestine, South Sudan, Somalia, and Syria.”
McCain warned in an interview with ABC News that in Afghanistan, for example, the food program doesn’t “have enough money to even get through October.”
“Unless we can build up some funding for Afghanistan, we’ll have to pull it completely out,” McCain said.
Emphasizing the urgency, she said, “Right now, women can’t work. They can’t hold jobs of any kind. And in the case of WFP, we’ve been feeding women, feeding women and children. And if we have to pull out, starvation and famine is going to be the result of this.”
Earlier this month WFP said 21 million people in Afghanistan need life-saving food aid and nutrition, and livelihood support; but that it only has the ability to help one out of five people who go to bed hungry at night. This came after the organization was forced to cut aid to two million people in Afghanistan.
Officials of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) stress the importance of delivering aid by WFP in Afghanistan.
“Continuation of WFP’s assistance transparently and in an accountable manner to vulnerable areas and needy people is effective to counter food insecurity and improving the livelihoods of the people,” said Abdul Rahman Habib, a spokesman for the Ministry of Economy.
