WFP, Swiss agency in K1bn food security project
World Food Programme with K1 billion ($190 840) funding from the Swiss Cooperation Agency is implementing a food security programme called Rural Resilience Initiative Model (R4) in implemented in Balaka.
WFP resilience programme officer Daniel Longhurst said through the project, WFP seeks to help poor households improve their food security and deal with climate change shocks, thereby strengthening their resilience.
He said: “The implementation of R4 is built on WFP’s existing activities around resilience, most importantly its food-for-asset [FFA] programme. Through the food for assets, communities are encouraged to carry out asset creation at community or household level to improve the natural recourses base of participants. In exchange, we pay them money or food.”
Longhusrt said the programme will be implemented in two phases over a five-year period and targets 2 500 households over three years in the pilot phase.
The project is being implemented in Traditional Authority (T/A) Kachenga in Balaka, covering four group village heads Hambamba, Zalengera, Mtumbwe and Pongolani.
During the tour of the project, Reto Wieser, regional director of cooperation at the Swiss Cooperation office in South Africa, said was touched with the levels of poverty.
