RP a major recipient of food aids in 2007 - WFP

from GMA News

The Philippines was among the major recipients of government to government food aid deliveries in 2007, a report from World Food Programme (WFP) showed.

This, as the organization noted that the soaring prices of food in the global market resulted in declining food aid deliveries all over the world for the past year.

In its Annual Food Aid Flows report, WFP - a Rome-based unit of the United Nations - said the Philippines was among the major recipients of total monetized food aid, second only to North Korea which received 29 percent of the total food aid.

"Increases of programme food aid to Armenia, Georgia, Philippines, and Kyrgyzstan contributed significantly to the increase of the programme food aid in Asia, and Eastern Europe and CIS," the WFP said.

"(The) Democratic People's Republic of Korea received the most consistent share of monetized food aid (29 percent), followed by the Philippines, Armenia, Georgia, and Bangladesh, each comprising between 5 and 6 percent of the total monetized food aid," it added.

The annual Food Aid Flows report provides a view of trends in global food aid, which include food aid deliveries by governments, non-governmental organizations and the WFP.

In its report, WFP also said that overall, a decline in food aid deliveries was recorded in 2007, owing to the soaring prices of food in the global market.

"Food aid deliveries continued to decline in 2007, reaching the lowest level since 961. Global food aid deliveries declined by 15 percent in 2007 to 5.9 million tons," the WFP said.

"The decline in food aid deliveries between 2000 and 2007 can partly be explained by the higher prices. If 2000 prices had prevailed in 2007, it would have been possible to deliver 6.6 million tons of maize, rice and wheat, which is nearly double the actual deliveries in 2007," the organization said.

It added that food aid deliveries have decreased almost continuously since 1999, when they stood at 15 million tons.

The WFP warned that the continuation of the trend will mostly affect "vulnerable populations, including children and women in rural and urban areas."

Another ill effect of the high prices of food is that the poor scrimp on their other expenditures on education and health, "and possibly selling productive assets to cope with the higher food prices."

Quoting food experts, WFP also said that food prices will remain high during the next decade, "even if they decline gradually from their current peaks."

This likelihood is seen to derail the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, which seek to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger being suffered by more than half of the world's population.

The report said from 2003, which saw various donor agencies delivering 10.2 million tons of food, last year's deliveries only amounted to 5.9 million tons, of which 5.1 million were cereals and the rest were non-cereals.

By region, the Sub-Saharan Africa got the lion's share at 59 percent; followed by Asia, 29 percent; Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States, 5 percent; Latin America and the Caribbean, 6 percent; and Middle East and North Africa, 6 percent.