The World Food Programme (WFP) has reaffirmed its commitment to continue providing food assistance to the 1.3 million Rohingya refugees sheltered in Bangladesh. WFP’s Acting Executive Director Carl Skau said that “the Rohingya crisis remains one of WFP’s top global priorities.”
He made the remarks during a meeting with Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus on Tuesday (October 14) at a hotel in Rome, Italy.
According to the Chief Adviser’s Deputy Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder, the meeting focused on the Rohingya crisis, famine situations in Gaza and Sudan, and the growing challenges in global fundraising efforts to fight hunger.
Carl Skau praised Professor Yunus for his leadership and efforts in bringing renewed international attention to the Rohingya issue, noting that the high-level meeting at the United Nations on September 30, convened at Yunus’s initiative, helped put the Rohingya crisis back on the global agenda.
Both leaders emphasized the need for increased funding to support the refugees in the Rohingya camps. Skau said that following new humanitarian aid commitments from the United States and the United Kingdom, the WFP will continue to provide monthly food assistance worth USD 12 per person to each Rohingya refugee.
Dr. Yunus praised the WFP’s leadership in combating global hunger and famine, and expressed gratitude for its cooperation in Bangladesh’s new school feeding programme. He stated, “We aim to develop a high-quality, gradually expanding school feeding initiative similar to successful models in other Asian countries.”
The meeting also addressed the global food insecurity situation. Skau noted that nearly 300 million people worldwide are currently suffering from food insecurity, and that WFP is making tireless efforts to deliver hundreds of food trucks to Gaza.
Present at the meeting were Food Adviser Ali Imam Majumder, Fisheries and Livestock Adviser Farida Akhtar, SDG Coordinator Lamia Morshed, and Foreign Secretary Asad Alam Siam.