The minister for relief and disaster preparedness Hilary Onek and the UN resident coordinator H.E Rose Amalango has today strongly disagreed on the issue of refugee food purchase.
At a meeting to announce the support Japan has extended to the UN agencies in support to refugee host communities, Hon. Onek revealed that govt of uganda is in plans to stop WFP from importing food it distributes to refugees in Uganda as food aid.According to Onek, Uganda being a food basket with huge numbers of farmers, its very sad to see WFP buying from other countries and leaving ugandan farmers stuck with their food.
Onek further blamed UN agencies for always pampering foreign economies and leaving out local economies.
In response, Amalango stated that Ugandan food does not meet the required UN standards hence the continued importation of food to feed refugees.
Meanwhile, the WFP Uganda head of food systems and nutrition Robert Ackatia Arman confirms that they have started engaging Ugandan farmers in post-harvest programmes aimed at enhancing food quality which they will be supplying to the UN food agency.
Robert adds that in 2020, WFP bought over 113 metric tones of food worth USD.37.3M from Ugandan farmers, and this year they require USD.220M to feed over 1.4 million refugees but are running short of USD.86M.
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