KABUL - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is reducing food assistance to millions of Afghans and focusing remaining resources on helping the most vulnerable in areas with the highest levels of food insecurity due to a shortage of funds. English - Pashto - Dari

“We want to assure our beneficiaries in Afghanistan that we are working hard to raise the funds needed to restart these activities as soon as we can,” said WFP Deputy Country Director Bradley Guerrant.

Starting this month, WFP is cutting school meals, food-for-training activities and food-for-work programmes in about half of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. WFP hopes to resume these activities in the near future if funding becomes available.

WFP, which is 100 percent voluntarily funded, had originally planned to feed more than 7 million people in Afghanistan in 2011, but a shortage of donor funds means the agency will now only reach about 3.8 million people this year.

Although many countries have contributed generously to its multi-year operation, WFP would require an additional $220 million to continue its work in Afghanistan at the level originally planned.

Scaling down longer-term recovery programmes that seek to bolster food security will allow WFP to use its limited available resources to continue providing lifesaving food assistance to the neediest and most vulnerable Afghans – especially women and children.