MYANMAR / THAILAND: Five million going hungry in Myanmar, says World Food Programme

Myanmar, the rice bowl of Asia when it won independence from Britain 60 years ago, is now struggling to feed at least 10 percent of its 52 million people, the World Food Programme (WFP) said in Bangkok on Thursday (October 18). In a food surplus country like Myanmar, no one should be going hungry but millions are, Tony Banbury, Asia Regional Director of the WFP said. He has just returned from a five-day trip to Myanmar - planned well before last month's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters - and saw first hand that food was the most critical need for scores of people, especially ethnic minorities living in remote border areas. To blame for food shortages are repressive state policies -- rice farmers are forced to sell to the government at below market prices, for example -- and government restrictions on free movement and trade which prevent the development of a proper, functioning market. WFP programmes in Myanmar include feeding HIV/AIDS patients, assisting families who were previously growing poppies to supply the opium trade as well as giving primary school children food packages which encourages them to come to school and gives their family food. But programmes such as these are only stop gap solutions, Banbury said. The world cannot be expected to feed Myanmar if the army government that has ruled the former Burma for the last four decades does not change policies that have so impoverished its people. "Humanitarian assistance from the WFP and other aid organisations can only be a band-aid," he told a media conference in Bangkok. "The sad thing is or one of the many sad things is, right now the world's not even willing to pay for that band-aid." The U.N. agency has a programme to feed 500,000 people in Myanmar - despite its estimate that five million do not have enough to eat on a regular basis. However funding shortfalls and difficulties in liasing with one of the world's most isolated regimes means that aid is reaching only about half the intended number. "Two hundred and fifty thousand or more people will go hungry every night in Burma because the world is not providing assistance to them, not paying for that band-aid," he said. WFP aid operations in Myanmar are budgeted to cost 51 million U.S. dollars for 2007-09. However, 35 million U.S. dollars pledged by donors has yet to materialise. So far Australia leads the donors list, having paid up five million dollars. This is followed by two million from the United Nations' own coffers and a million each from Japan and the European Union. With many Western governments contemplating sanctions and international goodwill for Myanmar running high after the junta's brutal response to monks and civilians protesting against army rule, it remains to be seen if the humanitarian aid flow will increase.

ITN Source | October 18, 2007

Tags:. .struggling. .patients. .western. .primary. .prevent