UN food agency calls on thriving Asian nations to become donors

UN food agency calls on thriving Asian nations to become 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.