WFP says 5.7 million Haitians face hunger; needs $46 million to sustain relief through July

Lola Castro, regional director for the World Food Programme in Latin America and the Caribbean, told reporters that an estimated 5.7 million people in Haiti are facing emergency levels of hunger and that WFP’s food stocks were running low.

"We have only stocks to assist any emergency or any new displacement ... up to July," Castro said, and she added that WFP needs $46,000,000 for the next six months, with $20,000,000 required urgently to avoid cuts to assistance.

Castro said WFP and partners had reached about 1,330,000 people in Haiti through March but that the United Nations’ Humanitarian Response Plan for Haiti was only about 8% funded. She warned that the start of the Atlantic hurricane season and empty warehouses increased the risk that a single storm could push hundreds of thousands more into acute food insecurity.

The regional director described sharply worsened conditions in Port-au-Prince and nearby areas, saying roughly 8,500 people in displaced-person camps were lacking food, water, sanitation and shelter and reporting that 6,000 women and girls had reported some form of gender-based violence. Castro also said WFP normally provides daily school meals to about 500,000 children; without additional resources, those numbers would be reduced by about half.

Castro said WFP procures much of its food locally from smallholder farmers where markets remain functional and that cuts to assistance would also damage local livelihoods. She described an example of recent displacement and destruction of livelihoods in a commune she named during the briefing, saying roughly 14,000 people there had been displaced and were receiving food assistance.

Associated Press correspondent Edith Lederer, speaking on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association, asked for exact funding figures and why donor contributions were falling. "Could you give us some exact figures of what the appeal has been? How much you've gotten? And why do you think that donor nations are not giving any money to Haiti?" Lederer asked.

Castro replied that WFP had carryover funds and received about $40,000,000 that helped reach the 1.33 million people noted above, but that a gap remained. She said the global scale of multiple crises had reduced donor contributions to some countries and urged that Haiti not be forgotten.

Castro closed by saying WFP remains operational in Haiti, with logistics and storage capacity including air and barge operations, but that current resources were insufficient to respond to new shocks and sustained need. "We really need to do something ... to hold the line on hunger," she said.

The briefing did not include any formal U.N. decisions or funding commitments; Castro’s remarks were a request to the humanitarian community and donor governments for emergency financing.