Foreign
By Kennedy Nnamani
THE United States says it is providing humanitarian and food assistance to some African countries amid global food crisis.
A press statements issued on August 5 by Ned Price, U.S Department spokesperson and the U.S Agency for International Development, USAID stated that Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the 31st U.S Ambassador to the United Nations announced in Ghana over $127 million in humanitarian assistance for Africa through the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.
According to Thomas-Greenfield, the assistance will provide lifesaving support to refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless persons, and persecuted people across Africa, including those affected by crises in Burkina Faso, Chad, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Niger, and other new and protracted displacement situations.
“These funds will provide lifesaving and life-sustaining support to forcibly displaced populations, including those affected by the growing food crisis and global shortages and their hosting communities across Africa,” the statement read.
In addition, the USAID noted that it is providing $2.5 million in new development assistance, subject to congressional notification, in Ghana.
It is important to know that Ghana is an existing Feed the Future partner country to the U.S. Thus Ghana “will intensify efforts to directly mitigate the impacts of growing food insecurity, which has been exacerbated by Russia’s unprovoked aggression in Ukraine.”
The statement also noted that the additional funding in Ghana will focus on developing and marketing inorganic and organic fertilizer products, and support fertilizer importers and blenders/manufacturers, including private sector partners.
“Supporting vulnerable households and individuals to protect their health and economic livelihoods can strengthen food systems, which in turn can help mitigate the risks of food insecurity that can erode existing capacities to meet a population’s needs,” the statement said.
The Feed the Future is intensified efforts to mitigate the global food crisis and alleviate food insecurity and malnutrition.
Signed in May this year by President Joe Biden, this supplemental bill includes $2.76 billion in supplemental U.S. government resources to protect the world’s most vulnerable populations from the escalating global food security crisis exacerbated by Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine and the severe drought in the Horn of Africa region.
These supports would help the benefiting countries to cushion the scourge of food crisis hugely caused by the Russian aggression in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic which affected the prices of food and fertilizer.
KN
Tags: Kennedy Nnamani Ned Price USAID
