UN food agency in Burma: From emergency to protracted operations

No.09 - 2/2007
22 February 2007
Drugs
 
UN food agency in Burma: From emergency to protracted operations
 
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has upgraded its food assistance that began in 2004 to ex-poppy farmers in Shan State from emergency operations to protracted relief and recovery operations beginning 2007, according to a copy of its project proposal received by S.H.A.N.
 
The three-year operation will be targeting 726,000 people whose livelihoods have been affected by the poppy ban. "WFP's April 2006 evaluation mission indicated that food was a major requirement for vulnerable families and recommended a shift from relief to recovery/ rehabilitation to address the needs of the targeted population," reads the document.
 
The area most severely hit by the opium ban is in the Wa territory that had declared opium free in June 2005. Before the year, the 6,000 square mile area in the Sino-Burma border was reputed as the largest producer of opium in Burma.
 
However, the response for the Wa's "supreme sacrifice," as one of its top leaders call the ban on its more than a century old opium production has not been encouraging, according to a Wa administrative officer in Pangkham, as Panghsang is officially known. "We had expected that assistance would rush in," he said in August. "But what we are getting in only a tenth of what we need."
 
The UN agencies meanwhile have blamed on the 7-page guidelines on UN and international humanitarian agencies issued by Naypyidaw last February. The restrictions, said U Soe Tha, Minister for National Planning and Economic Development to AFP, were to ensure "no unpleasant incidents" happen to them. "Even we ourselves have to take security precautions for traveling," he was quoted as saying.
 
The WFP however rejected Naypyidaw's "concern" by saying, "Myanmar is classified as security phase I by the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS). There have been no threats to United Nations staff to date; the findings of WFP's threat assessment missions in February 2005 did not indicate major security threats."
 
Apart from Shan State, the areas targeted by the WFP include Northern Rakhine (Arakan) State, Magwe division, Chin State and Kachin State, totaling 1.6 million people, of whom 1.18 million are said to be children of school age.
 
The Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC) that claims to speak for the non-Burman ethnic states has welcomed humanitarian assistance from the international community.

^{Map: WFP}