U.S mission donates $12mn to refugees in Uganda

By Independent reporter

The U.S. Mission to Uganda has announced a donation of $12 million to the UN World Food Program (WFP) Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation in support of refugees in Uganda and the chronically food-insecure people in the Karamoja region, it said in a Jan. 17 statement.

It said the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will provide the funding to WFP on behalf of the American people.  The contribution advances the U. S. Government’s food security initiative, Feed the Future, which aims to sustainably reduce hunger, poverty, and under-nutrition.

“This contribution emphasizes the U.S. Government’s commitment to address acute food and nutrition insecurity among both refugees and extremely vulnerable households in Uganda,” said U.S. Ambassador Scott DeLisi.

The WFP Country Director Sory Ouane says the U.S. contribution will enable WFP to provide three months of food assistance to more than 330,000 people. “Refugees continue to arrive in Uganda, and urgently require food support,” said Ouane. “The United States’ donation will be particularly helpful in meeting the needs of the newly-arrived refugees who are in desperate need of support during that initial period.  At the same time, there are certain households in the Karamoja region that are threatened by food insecurity and malnutrition.”

The WFP currently provides food assistance to 145,000 refugees living in settlements throughout Uganda, as well as 148,000 people from extremely food-insecure households in Karamoja.  The WFP food basket for these two groups consists of cereals, pulses, super cereal (a fortified corn-soya blend), vegetable oil, and salt.

The refugees, who come mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Somalia, are based in settlements in western Uganda.