International humanitarian organisations are unable to conduct assistance work in Balochistan due to security issues, the World Food Programme (WFP) on Saturday told Pakistan Today.
WFP spokesman Amjad Jamal said, “We are facing serious security issues and cannot travel to many flood-affected areas in Balochistan. The security concern make us dependent on partner organizations but depend on partners entirely may affect monitoring and transparency despite a strong checking mechanism.” When asked if there was a funding shortfall, Amjad said the WFP was facing a critical shortfall of US$102 million for the flood aid operation in Sindh and Balochistan.
He said, “The WFP plans to reach 2.36 million people in November but without significant additional contributions, we will not be able to carry our operation further as sufficient supplies after November will not be available.” He also said that if funds were not provided WFP would either cut down supplies or reduce number of beneficiaries from December. Asked about operational updates, Amjad said the WFP exceeded its target of reaching 2.2 million flood-affected people during October in Sindh and Balochistan, with 2.5 million people receiving food rations.
In September, 546,000 people received food assistance, more than 100,000 of whom have so far received a second one-month ration.
Talking about under-nourished children, Amjad spokesman said the Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programme in Sindh has been initiated in 58 sites with eight partners to provide treatment for screened cases of moderate and severe acute malnutrition amongst young children and pregnant and lactating women. “So far some 56,000 children and 37,000 women have been screened.
The under-nourished among them are receiving supplementary food, including more than 2,000 young children, 3,400 siblings and 1,200 women”, he said. He said safeguards have been built into distributions to ensure that traditionally marginalised groups (female-headed households, non-able bodied and the elderly) have equal access to assistance, such as separate distribution counters and direct delivery of food rations.