WFP Food-for-Work Schemes
7,000 tonnes of rice for Bangladesh
Brazil will contribute 7,000 metric tonnes of rice, valued at US$ 3.3 million, for people living in the most disaster-prone areas of Bangladesh through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
The donation is scheduled to arrive at the Chittagong port on May 9.
WFP, with the Local Government Engineering Department, will employ 80,000 ultra poor people, 70 percent of whom are women, in food-for-work schemes on key infrastructure projects in coastal and flood-prone areas.
The projects include building and maintaining embankments, re-excavating canals for irrigation and drainage, raising homesteads above flood levels and the building of roads and paddocks.
The projects will be carried out through WFP's Enhancing Resilience to Disasters and the Effects of Climate Change programme.
The programme also provides training in disaster management, nutrition, hygiene and health education and income generating activities.
The wages will be paid in food and cash, where WFP will provide the food and the government will provide the equivalent in cash, says a WFP press release yesterday.
Christa Räder, WFP representative in Bangladesh, said, “WFP is very grateful for this generous donation from the people of Brazil.
“This donation provides us with the opportunity to support the most vulnerable in Bangladesh in overcoming the combined challenges of food insecurity, under-nutrition and the impact of natural disasters and climate change.”
Ricardo L Viana de Carvalho, the Brazilian ambassador to Bangladesh, said, “Brazil has a long-standing and fruitful partnership with WFP in a variety of issues related to improving food security.
“Since 2011, we have been carrying out in-kind donations, with the support of WFP, to a group of over 40 countries which are vulnerable to food insecurity.
“We are confident that the donation to Bangladesh will have a positive and lasting impact and will generate further cooperation between both our governments, as well as with WFP.”
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