Highlights
· WFP is finishing up its first round of food distribution in the Hela and Enga Provinces of the Highlands Region and is preparing for a second round to reach 127,000 people.
· On 18 July, WFP began a food distribution that will reach 28,000 people in the Western and Southern Highlands Provinces.
· On 08 August, WFP will initiate a food distribution in Milne Bay Province to reach 52,000 people.
In Numbers
207,000 people in need of food assistance.
130,135 people reached —26,027 households —with each household receiving 70 kg rations of rice, to last six weeks.
1,775 mt of rice distributed.
Situation Update
Although the El Niño Southern Oscillation has officially ended, many Papua New Guineans continue to suffer from hunger as they wait for their harvests to come to fruition. As of early August, many subsistence farmers have not profited from their fields, with many expecting yields in December or later. Eighty percent of the population is semi-dependent on subsistence farming to feed themselves and their families.
WFP has conducted food distributions since 06 June and plans to provide fortified rice to 207,000 people in Enga, Hela, Southern Highlands, Western and Milne Bay Provinces by 31 October.
WFP Response
Food and Nutrition Assistance
WFP, in cooperation with its partner CARE, has completed two months of food distributions in the Highlands Region. In June, WFP reached 56,685 people in Pilikambi Rural and Wage Rural Local Level Governments (LLGs) with 794 mt of rice. In July, WFP reached 73,450 hungry people in Kandep Rural and Upper Wage Rural LLGs with 981 mt of rice. Each household received a 70 kg of rice, to last six weeks.
Distributions in the Highlands have generally run according to plan, with many positive comments received from the community during beneficiary interviews, with regard to the supply of rice, distribution method and fairness of the distribution. However, the volatile security situation and isolated heavy rains continue to present challenges to the operation.
On 15 August, WFP will commence another round of food distribution to 127,000 people in the Highlands. Necessary logistics preparations and identification of potential staff are underway, for WFP to complete the second round as a direct distribution, without the partner CARE.
WFP, with assistance from the National and Provincial Disaster Centres and the Church Partnership Programme, identified 77,770 people in Milne Bay Province affected by El Niño drought compounded with cyclone damages.
Of the 77,770 El Niño-affected people in Milne Bay Province, food shortages are particularly acute for people residing in outer, remote islands and atolls and some mainland ward areas. Starting 08 August, WFP will distribute 728 mt of rice to the most vulnerable 52,000 people beginning with those in the outermost islands.
In the Western and Southern Highlands Provinces, WFP has assisted private partners with logistics coordination and technical guidance. On 18 July, WFP commenced a final round of airlifts to reach 28,000 people with 10 kg rice per person.
Many of the people that WFP reached in the Western and Southern Highlands live in remote locations, which presented a number of logistical challenges such as weather interference, poor conditions on some airstrips and unavailability of loaders for some planes. Distributions were made by airlifts, river dinghy and road.
From 22-24 June, WFP co-hosted a CERF monitoring mission that involved National/ Provincial Disaster Centre officials, the United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNICEF. On 01 July, WFP launched a News Release regarding the mission, which was featured in media outlets including Reuters, Radio New Zealand, and local periodicals such as Papua New Guinea Today.
The United Nations Special Envoy for El Niño Macharia Kamau conducted an observation
mission of the drought response in Papua New Guinea from 30 June to 02 July. Mr. Kamau continues to advocate for community
preparedness and post-El Niño resilience building in the country, particularly in Milne Bay, and plans to share his lessons learned with the United Nations General Assembly.