With the support of the European Union Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Service (ECHO), the World Food Program (WFP) provides vital financial assistance to vulnerable people, boosts the local economy and strengthens communities.

An alarming number of donkeys and horses in the North-West department, among the regions hardest hit by drought, have died due to lack of food and water.

55% of residents of the North-West are in a situation of acute food insecurity IPC Phase 3* (Crisis) or IPC Phase 4* (Emergency) according to the global scale of food insecurity Integrated food security Phase Classification< /I> (IPC)

This is also the second highest prevalence of hunger among Haiti's departments where almost half of the total population 4.9 is food insecure.

Let's remember that most residents of the North-West are farmers and the department's agricultural production has continued to decline for several years due to increasingly severe droughts. Already fragile livelihoods are being eroded, leaving families without the means to earn an income.

With EU funding, WFP supports 12,000 people in the North West with cash transfers. The aid is provided in four tranches of assistance totaling US$480 per household, enabling nearly 2,500 people to meet their families' most urgent needs.

In addition to direct food purchases in local markets, households sometimes invest in sustainable solutions such as the creation of small businesses or the purchase of livestock, which can allow them to improve their food autonomy.

For Haiti's most vulnerable families, animals represent a traditional safety net that can be used, eaten or sold in times of need.

Sultane, a widowed beneficiary, bought a goat with her first round of assistance. Mother of eight children, Sultane lives with three of her daughters and her granddaughter. With the help she received, Sultane plans to soon buy a piglet and chickens for the farm, enroll her two other daughters in school and pay for the land on which she built her house and where she and her family have lived for over ten years…

(*)

IPC Phase 3: Acute food and livelihood crisis

Acute and critical lack of access to food accompanied by severe and unusual malnutrition and accelerated depletion of livelihood assets which, if the situation continues, will cause the population to fall into Phase 4 or 5 and/or will likely result in chronic poverty;

IPC Phase 4: (Humanitarian emergency)

Serious lack of access to food accompanied by excessive mortality, very high and increasing malnutrition and irreversible depletion of livelihood assets.

HL/ HaitiLibre