Kuwait helps WFP rebuild lives in Syria

Cairo, Jan 26 (IANS/AKI) Kuwait has contributed $4 million for projects to improve people's lives in the war-torn Syria, where over a third of the population is hunger stricken, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has announced.

The projects will benefit some 20,000 people whose lives and livelihoods have been torn apart by years of conflict in Syria where 6.5 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from, the WFP said.

"This contribution from the Kuwait will support WFP in its efforts to help Syrian families recover from the devastating effects of displacement and give them the means to gradually rebuild their lives," said Corinne Fleischer, WFP Country Director and Representative in Syria.

"It is vital that families who have lost everything in the war can rebuild their livelihoods and once again become self-sufficient."

The Kuwaiti funds will enable WFP and its partners rehabilitate vital community assets in rural areas, which will allow farmers to produce more of their own food, the UN agency said.

According to the WFP, the fund will also provide vocational training to those who are fit to work.

Each family of five will receive WFP food rations for six months to cover their requirements, the agency noted.

"These funds will make a real difference for Syrian families who have lost so much and who continue to suffer as their country struggles to recover," said WFP's Director in the United Arab Emirates and Representative to the Gulf Cooperation Council, Mageed Yahia.

Kuwait has been at the forefront of humanitarian support for Syria since the beginning of the crisis and has given over $139 million to support WFP operations in Syria since 2013.

Its government hosted three international humanitarian pledging conferences for Syria, in 2013, 2014 and 2015, and co-hosted the 2016 Syria donor conference in London.

Since 2016, WFP has been supporting vulnerable Syrian families with programmes designed to help them rebuild their livelihoods.

Till date, some 250,000 people in 13 of Syria's 14 governorates have benefited from the WFP.

The UN agency aims to increase its livelihoods activities in 2019 if it can secure the funding to do so and currently helps feed three million conflict-affected people in Syria every month, providing them with rations of rice, wheat, vegetable oil, lentils, sugar and salt.

Each ration contains enough food to feed a family of five for one month.

--IANS/AKI

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