By Wokorach-Oboi
BEGINNING next year, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) will reduce the relief food ratio to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the northern Uganda camps.
The head of WFP Kitgum sub-office, Robert Dekker, said on Wednesday the ratio would reduce from 72% to 60%, effective January 1, 2006.
“We don’t want to give food 100 percent all the time. We don’t want people to be dependent on WFP food. If you give them all the time, people will say ‘why should we cultivate when we can get enough food from WFP’,” Dekker said.
He said the food ratio reduction was prompted by a survey carried out between March and May, which found out that what the IDPs were producing in their gardens and the cash they get through income-generating activities, put them now in a better position to help sustain them than in the recent past.
The change is to affect camps in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts, while in Lira district, the food ratio will be reduced further down to 50%.
According to letters the WFP has sent to IDP camps in Kitgum concerning the change, the monthly IDP food ratio for one person will now be reduced to 7.05kg of maize, 1.2kg of beans or peas, 1.2kg of corn-soya blend and 0.45kg of vegetable oil.
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