Korea provides emergency food aid to refugees and school children across Africa

The Republic of Korea has donated 11,520 MT of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) as emergency aid to 81,600 Malian refugees and 287,000 school children across Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, and Sierra Leone 

High food costs, coupled with climate crisis, conflicts and insecurity in West Africa is driving food out of reach for vulnerable families in the region. Across the three countries, school meals represent a critical safety net for vulnerable families and provide a significant incentive for parents to keep their children in school, boosting attentiveness in class and mitigating student dropouts. As schools have attempted to go back to normality following the COVID-19 pandemic, nutritious school meals and take-home rations play a key role in maximising student retention in schools and improving children’s nutrition.

In Guinea Bissau, where economic and climate-related crises are driving hunger and malnutrition up, WFP will distribute 2,400 mt of rice to 180,000 children in 850 schools for four months, providing essential nutritional support to schoolchildren. In Mauritania,the Korean contribution will be used to complement general food assistance to 81,600 Malian Refugees in the Mbera refugee camp for 11 months. This contribution will be partially used to provide school meals to 7,700 refugee children and 46,800 children from the host communities for nine months from October 2024 to June 2025.

The contribution towards the refugee response complements the cash-based response, thereby enabling refugee families that are most vulnerable to receive a complete and diversified food basket, particularly during the June-September period when these groups are often forced to resort to adverse coping strategies to make ends meet. 

Indeed, the Korean donation significantly comes as a time when hunger is on the rise in Sierra Leone due to numerous reasons including economic fallout linked to the Ukraine crisis, broader macroeconomic decline and lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, among others. 

"I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations and deepest appreciation to the Republic of Korea for their unwavering commitment to humanitarian efforts and their dedication to making a positive difference in the lives of those in need,” said WFP’s country director & representative in Sierra Leone, Yvonne Forsen. “This act of generosity exemplifies the spirit of international cooperation and compassion that lies at the core of the World Food Programme mission."