UN warns situation here likely to worsen

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the situation in Sri Lanka is likely to worsen.WFP said that the intensifying economic crisis in Sri Lanka continues to be a threat to its food security.

“The situation is likely to worsen without continued assistance during the lean season from October 2022 to February 2023,” WFP said.

According to the WFP, prices in urban areas of Colombo continue to increase. Food inflation (year-on-year) rose to 94.9 percent in September from 93.7 percent in August, according to the Colombo Consumer Price Index.

The WFP in its latest country brief on Sri Lanka for the month of Sept 2022, says: Markets reported concerns around rising and unstable prices, threatening to impact food accessibility.

According to its August Market Functionality Index:

Since the start of emergency operations in mid-August, WFP has reached a total of 209,344 people with cash assistance. This came as a part of WFP’s scale-up to reach 3.4 million additional people in 2022, through unconditional food assistance (cash or in-kind), school meals and nutrition support.To support one million children with school meals for a period of three months, WFP procured 1,475 mt of rice and 775 mt of iron-fortified rice and distribution will commence shortly. This will directly support schoolchildren through the Government’s national school meals programme.

The WFP is coordinating with the Government and donors to provide raw materials (maize and soya) to the Government’s Thriposha facility, to ensure continuity of nutrition support. WFP facilitated capacity building training and awareness programmes on ‘Enhancing knowledge on Geographic Information Systems’, targeting district-level disaster management assistants and representatives of Tri-forces’ training centres in Sri Lanka.

 WFP, in partnership with the National Dengue Control Unit and Disaster Preparedness and Response Division of the Ministry of Health, plans to conduct a series of multi-hazard contingency planning training in ten high-risk districts, before the North-East monsoon season.WFP is supporting the Ministry of Health with the creation and promotion of campaign materials for the 2022 National Nutrition Month in October. This includes partnering with a local chef to produce a series of videos to promote healthy, low-cost meals.