Key points
- One in three children in Afghanistan is stunted
- Rise in child malnutrition is linked to a decline in emergency food assistance: WFP
- In April, Trump cut off food assistance to Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan is seeing its sharpest-ever surge of child malnutrition, the World Food Programme (WFP) said Monday, adding it needed $539 million to assist the country’s most vulnerable families.
According to AP, almost 10 million people, a quarter of Afghanistan’s population, face acute food insecurity. One in three children in Afghanistan is stunted.
Dwindling donor support
The WFP said the rise in child malnutrition was linked to a decline in emergency food assistance over the past two years because of dwindling donor support.
In April, the administration of US President Donald Trump cut off food assistance to Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, according to CNN.
The US had been the largest funder of the WFP, providing $4.5 billion of the $9.8 billion in donations last year, AP reported.
Previous US administrations viewed such aid as serving national security by alleviating conflict, poverty, extremism and curbing migration, CNN reported.
The WFP said it has supported 60,000 Afghans returning from Iran in the last two months, a fraction of those crossing the border.
Vulnerable families
“Going forward, the WFP does not have sufficient funding to cover the returnee response at this time and requires $15 million to assist all eligible returnees from Iran,” AP cited WFP Communications Officer Ziauddin Safi as saying. He said the agency needs $539 million through January to help vulnerable families across Afghanistan.
Climate change is also hurting the population, especially those in rural areas.
Matiullah Khalis, head of the National Environmental Protection Agency, said last week that drought, water shortages, declining arable land, and flash floods were having a “profound impact” on people’s lives and the economy, AP reported.
