UN food agency calls for Asian donors

UN food agency calls for Asian donors

Agence France-Presse, Bangkok

The UN World Food Program (WFP) on Friday called on thriving
Asian nations to begin donating to humanitarian programs now that
they no longer needed aid themselves.

"We need the countries of this region to work with us in
alleviating the crises in this region and the world," said
visiting WFP executive director James Morris.

"I would particularly like to see the countries that
'graduate' from WFP to join our family of donor countries," he
said, citing Thailand, Vietnam and India as new donors to the
agency.

Morris said Southeast Asia was in a good economic position to
produce a large number of "emerging donors" to the UN food aid
agency.

He cited the example of Vietnam, where the WFP closed its
doors in December 2000 after 25 years, as a country that was now
capable of using its food surpluses to help ease hunger and
poverty in Asia.

Thailand had given 3,000 tons of rice during the Afghanistan
emergency in 2001, and this year a private sector consortium
mobilized 30 tons of rice for the Iraq emergency, he said.

And last year, India gave the WFP its first contribution with
a 40,000-tons donation of wheat as the first installment of what
is expected to be a 1.0 million-tons donation for vulnerable
people in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

China gives WFP more than US$3.0 million a year, he said, made
up of food aid transportation expenses and a cash donation of
$1.25 million.

Morris said that while Asian economies were growing, the
region still had severe humanitarian problems including
malnutrition, spiraling HIV-AIDS rates, and natural disasters
worsened by unusual combinations of drought and flood.

More than two-thirds of the underweight children in the world
live in Asia, he said.