To tackle food crisis in NW, SW: US donates over 11, 000 metric tons of rice.

The food supply arrived the country via the Douala port last week. It will be distributed to the most food insecure households including those affected by the crises in the Far North, North West, South West Regions, and to Central African Republic refugees in the East Region.

The US government is donating the food aid through the United States Agency for International Development, USAID.

The donation comes at a time more than three million Cameroonians are said to be facing food insecurity in parts of the North West, South West and Far North Regions.

Meanwhile, the food supply from the US government was received at the Douala port by officials of the World Food Programme, WFP, and the United States Agency for International Development, USAID.

The donation consists of 2.2 million bags of 50 kilos rice.

According to a news release, the United States government, through USAID, and its partner, WFP, made the said donation to help combat food insecurity in Cameroon and the Central African Republic. 

The rice donation will help Cameroon meet the food and nutritional needs of refugees, Internally Displaced Persons-IDPs, and host communities living in the most vulnerable Regions.

During the official reception in Douala, USAID Representative, Philippe Accilien, stated that “this food donation, in collaboration with the government of Cameroon, will help the country meet the urgent food and nutritional security needs of the population; especially to the more than 2.3 million people who, according to the results of the Harmonised Framework, would be acutely food insecure between June and August 2023”.

For her part, the Director of World Food Programme, WFP in Cameroon, Wanja Kaaria, added that: “The World Food Programme appreciates this contribution from the United States of America, and the strong partnership with the Cameroonian government, with whom WFP will be able to reach the most vulnerable people in the six Regions most affected by food insecurity-Far North, North, Adamaoua, East, North West and South West Regions”.

“The US government is the lead provider of humanitarian assistance to Cameroon through activities funded by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance and the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration,” reads the statement from the embassy.

The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, it should be said, provides food, water, health, shelter, and other life-saving services to approximately 1.4 million beneficiaries. 

USAID is the lead donor of WFP in Cameroon, with approximately CFA 20.8 billion contribution in 2022. USAID opened its offices in Cameroon in 1961 with a budget of 7.9 billion CFA ($14 million) and since then has proudly provided a total of 776.9 billion FCFA ($1.38 billion) in development and humanitarian assistance to the people of Cameroon.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, USAID contributed to major development projects like road and railway construction, including the Kumba-Mamfe Road in the South West Region and the Trans-Cameroon Railway, connecting Belabo to Ngaoundéré and Douala to Yaounde. 

USAID was also a catalyst in Cameroon’s education sector, participating in the building of the University Teaching Hospital of Yaounde (known as CHU), the University Centre in Dschang (current University of Dschang), and construction of the Institute for Research, Agriculture and Development, IRAD in Yaounde.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, USAID helped create Regional Funds for Health Promotion,former Provincial Pharmaceutical Supply Centers. 

In the mid-1990s, USAID cut its total workforce by over 30 percent and closed down 24 missions worldwide, including Cameroon, due to changing development priorities and the need to concentrate increasingly on scarce resources.