Beirut, November 21, 2022 (Xinhua) – Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced today (Monday) that the World Food Program has decided to allocate 5 billion and 400 million US dollars to Lebanon in the next three years.
This came during a joint press conference between Mikati and the Director of the World Food Program in Lebanon, Abdullah Al-Wardat, at the Prime Minister’s headquarters in Beirut.
Mikati said that the Executive Board of the World Food Program at its last meeting in Rome decided to allocate an amount of 5 billion and 400 million US dollars to Lebanon for the next three years.
He explained that the program promised that the products to be purchased would be entirely from the Lebanese market.
He pointed out that the program had started its work in Lebanon since 2012 following the Syrian displacement, and it was disbursing food aid to the displaced Syrians by 70% and to the Lebanese by 30%, with a total of $700 million per year.
He explained that following the meeting of the executive board of the program in Rome, it was agreed that 5 billion and 400 million dollars would be allocated to Lebanon over the next three years, provided that this would be equally shared between the Lebanese and the Syrians.
The Director of the Lebanese General Security, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, said in a press conference on October 25 that the official number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon is two million and 80 thousand refugees.
In turn, Al-Wardat said that the project will continue to provide emergency aid and in-kind and cash assistance to the beneficiaries, with an increase in their number to become one million Syrian refugees and one million Lebanese.
He announced that the program will continue to provide assistance to school students who benefit from the school feeding program, and the current number is regarding 73,000 students, while the new project requires reaching regarding 150,000 students.
He stressed the continuation of providing technical and technical support to the Ministry of Social Affairs to enhance the capacity to manage the social protection nets project in cooperation with the World Bank.
He pointed out that, in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and the International Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security in Lebanon will be enhanced by providing in-kind, technical and cash assistance to farmers with the aim of increasing the area of wheat cultivation in Lebanon, which imports 80% to 90% of its needs.
Lebanon has been suffering for 3 years from a severe economic and financial crisis, which the World Bank classified as one of the 3 most severe crises the world has known since the mid-nineteenth century. The crisis is accompanied by the collapse of the local currency once morest the dollar, the collapse of services and health, in addition to a shortage of fuel and medicines. /ts/
