IRIN
MYANMAR: WFP to launch food-for-work programme
26 December 2008


YANGON, 26 December 2008 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP), in 
collaboration with its implementing partners, will soon begin an 
ambitious food-for-work programme for thousands of Cyclone Nargis 
survivors.

The programme aims to rehabilitate local assets and restore livelihoods 
in affected communities, and will target 40,000 participants and 200,000 
beneficiaries in Myanmar's badly affected Ayeyarwady Delta.

"Food-for-work activities can make a significant difference to 
food-insecure residents of the delta, and at the same time help 
households rebuild their individual and community assets," Chris Kaye, 
WFP country director for Myanmar, told IRIN in Yangon, the former 
Burmese capital.

WFP is currently screening projects proposed by its partners, with 
expected project sites to be announced soon.

The programme is set to begin at the end of January and run till the end 
of April, with a focus on the construction, repair and maintenance of 
roads, and the construction of wells, dykes, dams, ponds and drainage 
ditches.

Reforestation, land clearance and irrigation projects will also be 
included. Individual projects will last 15-45 days.

These activities will play a critical role in restoring food security in 
the wake of Nargis, which left close to 140,000 people dead or missing 
in May 2008.

"From this programme, each participant will receive 4kg of rice per day 
as family rations," Zin Aung Swe, a WFP programme assistant, explained.

Participants will include those left particularly vulnerable by Nargis, 
including landless farmers, jobless day labourers and female-headed 
households.

Cash-for-work

Plans are also under way to implement a cash-for-work programme in a few 
months time in the cyclone-affected townships of Yangon Division, 
including Kunchangone Township.

Under the scheme, some 500 people will participate, with around 2,500 
beneficiaries.

Programme participants will receive 2,000 kyat (US$1.6) per day in 
return for labour intensive activities to benefit local communities.

"We'll evaluate our [food-for-work and cash-for-work] activities, and 
then will decide whether to expand our programmes or not," Zin Aung Swe 
said when asked whether the programmes would be extended after April.

"Pockets of concern"

Studies conducted in the delta now show positive results of the food aid 
provided thus far.

According to preliminary results of the UN Food and Agriculture 
Organization (FAO)/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission, overall 
food security in the area was improving, and humanitarian agencies were 
making progress in helping cyclone-affected people restore their 
livelihoods.

"However, there are pockets of concern where food and other assistance 
continue to be needed," said Kaye, adding: "WFP will carry on responding 
to these needs by implementing both relief and recovery activities."

Seven months after the cyclone, the agency has begun shifting its focus 
from relief food provision to early recovery, as well as helping to 
rebuild livelihoods in the delta, once the country's rice bowl.

Food-for-work activities, along with a supplementary feeding programme 
targeting vulnerable populations, would be a pillar of WFP's recovery 
activities in 2009, Kaye said.

The Periodic Review, the first of three such assessments released on 19 
December by the Tripartite Core Group (comprising the Myanmar 
government, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the UN) said 
food aid had reached every surveyed community along the path of the 
cyclone. Indicators of food vulnerability showed a clear impact in areas 
where food aid efforts had been concentrated.

Nonetheless, it said food insecurity persisted in some areas.

"The problems facing the recovery of food production [including seed 
quality and harvest] and purchasing power may take some years to 
address. Food insecurity around Yangon and Pathein [a township in the 
delta] may be a result of chronic problems, rather than directly from 
Cyclone Nargis," it said.


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