By: Fransina Nghidengwa
The World Food Programme (WFP) and MTC on Tuesday launched the Japan- funded food value voucher programme in Tsintsabis.
The World Food Programme, with the support of the Japanese government, came up with the programme to support the vulnerable.
The food value vouchers are provided in three cycles. The voucher will have a value of N$700 to be distributed by the end of March.
The WFP’s Country Deputy Director Erica Shafudah said the Programme delivers its mandate for saving lives and changing lives for vulnerable communities through collaborations with its partners.
She said they do this in support of the government to ensure that nobody is left behind, especially in terms of food security.
“One of our mandates is changing lives through innovative and technological solutions,” she pointed out.
Shafudah further advised retailers and those going to assist beneficiaries that the voucher is meant for food items, and they should not sell the food items.
In a speech read on his behalf, MTC Managing Director Licky Erastus stated that they have launched a system which brings about digital transformation for social and rural transformation.
“We are very much committed to improving the community lives of Tsintsabis and providing innovative digital solutions and to their partnership with the World Food Programme. We aim to improve and support programmes that are targeted towards food systems infrastructure, rural transformation, human capital development and digital solutions.”
Erastus added: “They will have availability to receive aid in a digital way, enabling them to have a better life and, as part of the agreement to bring digital solutions to small holder farmers and capacity building for youth and women, mobile financial services and precision and smart agriculture.”
Meanwhile, Japan Ambassador to Namibia Nishimaki Hisao said that under the circumstances, the Japanese government has decided to help the affected people through a working relationship with the WFP by contributing 500USD (N$9085) to Namibians, by providing the food vouchers.
The project targets 21,600 beneficiaries in the regions of Oshikoto, Omaheke and Kunene, inclusive of more than 3,000 malnutrition children under the age of five.
This, Ambassador Hisaohe said, is carried under their Emergency Grant AID project, in response to the global food security.
On March 3, the Government of Japan decided to provide food-related assistance totaling USD 50 million, consisting of USD 45 million in Emergency Grand Aid through international organizations and USD 5 million in food assistance through Japanese NGOs, as a response to the deterioration of global food security, which has been exacerbated by Russia’s war against Ukraine.
This Emergency Grant Aid is to provide food assistance of USD 40 million to countries and region in Asia, the Middle East and Africa through the WFP and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and agricultural production assistance of USD 5 million in Ukraine through the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
In June last year MTC and the WFP penned down a partnership that will scale long-term engagements to support the Namibian public sector by facilitating the provision of digital solutions, and innovation in view of supporting WFP’s ethos of ending hunger and improving socio-economic outcomes.
