Rhino: Follow-up – Prime Minister of the Government of Peace Mohamed Hassan Al-Taishi received, in Nyala, the Acting Executive Director of the World Food Program, Mr. Karl Sako, and the Director of the Sudan Office, in the presence of the Executive Director of the National Authority for Humanitarian Access, at an expanded meeting to discuss ways to strengthen humanitarian and development partnerships to address the escalating food security challenges in the country.
The Prime Minister warned of the additional risks resulting from low and erratic rainfall, which portend a further decline in agricultural production, pastures, and water resources and a deepening of the food crisis, stressing the importance of early action to prevent food shortages from turning into a large-scale humanitarian disaster.
The Prime Minister outlined three key priorities to guide the partnership with the program, including: ensuring that immediate food and nutritional assistance reaches vulnerable populations without hindrance or discrimination; investing in early recovery and the restoration of agricultural and pastoral livelihoods; and linking humanitarian aid to local production, storage, markets, and school feeding programs to gradually transition toward self-reliance.
The Prime Minister also presented four practical proposals for implementation: expanding the program’s field operations; conducting an urgent joint assessment and survey of emerging risks; establishing pilot projects that integrate aid with production, markets, and school feeding; as well as establishing direct coordination mechanisms for early warning and addressing operational challenges.
The Prime Minister affirmed the government’s full readiness to facilitate humanitarian access, protect humanitarian workers, and promote absolute transparency in its work with the United Nations and international organizations. He concluded by emphasizing the hope that affected Sudanese communities would transition from being mere recipients of aid to becoming food producers for themselves and their regions.
For his part, Mr. Karl Sako expressed his thanks and appreciation for the warm welcome, affirming that the World Food Program will give Sudan special priority given the scale of the existing threats and the large number of people affected, and noting that this was his second visit to Darfur and that the organization is moving toward increasing the number of field staff.
Sako explained that the program faces challenges related to declining international support, which has affected the number of beneficiaries, noting the resort to alternative mechanisms such as cash and financial assistance in some areas, such as the Tawila region, and efforts to address issues related to the registration and identification of beneficiaries.
