United Nations Food Shortage

Facing widespread funding shortages, the United Nations has been forced to cut back on critical services, potentially endangering millions of lives.

Among the cutbacks is the closing of various airways, which provide transportation to aid workers across the world, and ceasing of food delivery in places like Uganda and the Ivory Coast.

According to the BBC, The UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) has received a little more than half of its needed funds this year, at around 90 million dollars.

World Food Program spokesperson Greg Barrow said UNHAS was “a vital component of humanitarian operations across the world”.

“But because of a funding shortfall there is now a grave risk that the air service … could literally be grounded in the next few weeks due to a lack of funds,” he said.

The lack of transportation means could create deadly consequences, as aid workers are unable to reach remote and dangerous areas.

For example, a single-plane service flies an average of 4,000 humanitarian passengers to and from Chad each month, oftentimes serving additional aid workers not working for the United Nations.

“How will WFP reach the hungry? How will doctors reach their patients? How will people have clean water if the engineers who help to build wells can’t get there,” said Pierre Carrasse, Chief of WFP’s Aviation Branch.

Africa is particularly vulnerable to these shortages, the UN said.

In order for flights to resume in Chad, one of the most desperate countries in Africa, the UN said it needs an additional 6.7 million dollars in order to continue operations until the end of the year. Currently, the humanitarian organization is helping 250,000 refugees and 180,000 internally displaced persons in the area. The services are scheduled to stop August 15, 2009 unless an intervention is taken.

As for food, developing countries have been hit hard in the last few years, due to rising supplies costs. Without the aid of the World Food Program, millions, if not billions of people are vulnerable to starvation and death.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization food prices are higher today than they were one year ago at the height of the food crisis, wrote The Nation.

The WFP said it was hoping to feed around 104 million people in 74 countries, but due to the funding shortage has only received less then half of the needed donations to do so.