Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

The United Nations world food programme, WFP, is one of the world's largest humanitarian agencies and is dependent entirely on voluntary contributions from donors. Last year alone, the WFP provided food assistance for 90 million people worldwide. Ireland is a long-term and committed supporter of the WFP.

Irish funding for the WFP comes from two sources. My colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Mary Coughlan, provides an annual grant towards the core funding of the WFP. My Department, through Irish Aid, provides assistance to the WFP for specific emergencies. The total amount provided for WFP in 2007 was over €24.5 million. To date this year, the overall total Government allocation for the WFP amounts to €20.1 million. This is composed of €9.9 million from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in core funding and €10.2 million from Irish Aid primarily for a number of humanitarian emergencies, including Chad, Somalia, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Zimbabwe and west Africa.

Irish funding to the WFP has increased rapidly in recent years as that agency has proved itself adept at getting much-needed food relief to those who most need it quickly and effectively. In 2003, total funding to the WFP amounted to approximately €7.8 million. This represents a tripling of assistance in five years. Ireland is now one of the largest donors to the WFP on a per capita basis and this fact has been recognised by the various executive directors of the WFP, who have paid frequent visits to Ireland.

This year, for the first time, the Irish Aid contribution includes a special grant of €3 million for the WFP's special market mitigation account, which has been established to cover the extraordinary increase in the cost of supplying relief rations, owing to recent food and fuel price increases. A further element in Irish Aid's contribution is a grant of €1 million to the WFP arising from the Government's rapid response initiative. The WFP is one of the key partners of Irish Aid's rapid response initiative and this grant covers €600,000 for the construction of a new warehouse facility for its logistics hub for Africa based in Accra, Ghana, as well as €400,000 to enhance the WFP's emergency preparedness capacity.

In addition to our direct support to the WFP, Ireland provides substantial indirect support to the WFP. Ireland is a strong supporter of the UN's central emergency response fund, CERF. This fund ensures that emergency funding is pre-positioned and ready for distribution quickly and effectively to assist those affected by humanitarian emergencies. Since its inception in 2006, Irish Aid has contributed €52.6 million to this fund, of which the WFP is the largest single recipient.

A second source of our indirect support is by way of the European Union. The European Commission recently committed €117 million as a response to the impact of the increase in food prices on the world's most vulnerable people. A substantial portion of this money will go to the WFP.

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