Executive Director of the World Food Programme Travels To Burkina Faso To Highlight Continuing Needs In Sahel
The Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, will travel to Burkina Faso from March 13 to 15 2013. Cousin will visit the country on the invitation of the President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré, whom she met in October 2012 at the Forum on International Cooperation in Milan, Italy.
Cousin’s trip comes one year after humanitarian agencies, including WFP, scaled up assistance in response to the food and nutrition emergency in the Sahel region of West Africa, which includes Burkina Faso. While the response averted a deeper crisis, the region is still marked by high levels of food and nutrition insecurity as well as by the effects of conflict in Mali. Burkina Faso currently hosts more than 47,000 Malian refugees.
Cousin will visit several WFP activities, such as school meals, nutrition programs and projects that benefit smallholder farmers. She will also have the opportunity to meet communities who have benefited from these projects.
While in Burkina Faso, Cousin will meet representatives from other UN agencies that are part of the UN Country Team system, representatives from WFP’s technical and financial partners and representatives from non-governmental organizations. In addition, she will meet with Government representatives to discuss WFP’s operations in the country.
WFP’s Regional Director for West Africa, Thomas Yanga, who is based in Dakar, Senegal, will join Cousin in Burkina Faso.
Source: World Food Programme
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Category: Africa
