Annual Country Report 2021: Democratic Republic of the Congo. Country Strategic Plan 2021-2024

Annual Country Report 2021: Democratic Republic of the Congo. Country Strategic Plan 2021-2024

Rome (Italy): World Food Programme, 2021.

English

91 p.

ELR1598

DRC is the world’s biggest hunger emergency, with 27 million people - some 26 percent of its population - acutely food insecure. WFP assisted 4.5 million people with in-kind food, 1.4 million with cash and some 1.8 million children, pregnant and lactating women and girls (PLW/G) with specialized nutritious foods. Although DRC's dire food security situation during the year mainly necessitated emergency relief, WFP continued working to link crisis response activities to early recovery and resilience-building interventions. Partnering with FAO and UNICEF, it scaled up joint programmes in the latter areas. Such interventions, mostly in what were once conflict zones, provided integrated support to vulnerable communities, enabling them to grow their own food and increase earnings, and in the process helping to boost social cohesion. WFP procured 24,850 mt of food in-country for its operations, including from smallholder farmers, buying from regions with production surpluses and transporting the commodities to food-deficit areas, while boosting smallholder awareness of its quality requirements. Resilience-building projects helped smallholders improve the quantity and quality of their yields, and reduce post-harvest losses. WFP provided operational support to Ebola medical response teams, enabling swift assistance in remote areas. WFP’s home-grown school feeding programme reached 226,000 children. It purchased locally for the purpose 1,000 mt of commodities in the 2020-21 academic year, empowering smallholder farmers. After schools were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, pupils were provided with WFP take-home rations. While there are no national data illustrating progress towards the SDGs, WFP’s in-kind and cash assistance gave millions of vulnerable Congolese access to food.

ELR 1598

English

MON-127223

127223