Last December 2 when I flew to Jakarta, Indonesia for my On l Off ASEAN Bloggers Exchange, Angeli Mendoza my very supportive partner and coordinator for the World Food Programme – Asia Office who’s based in Thailand manages to work things with the Indonesian office of WFP so I can further understand our campaigns on a wider perspective. I may be working closely with the Philippine office with Country Director Stephen Anderson, Communications and Partnership Mei Nebreja and Philipp Herzog now, while in the head office in Rome, Italy with Justin Smith, Nancy Roman and our Executive Director Josette Sheeran are showing their support in what I am doing, I had the chance to see more opportunities to learn more about WFP in other countries. In the case of Indonesia, I discovered their key areas and projects and thank you to Candy Sihombing of Communications and Partnership group of WFP-Indonesia for opening that idea to me.
Indonesia as of 2010 has a record of 237,641,326 million in terms of population, while 9.2% of that were children under five years of age and from that number 18% where malnourish. Also shown in the 2010 report 35.60% are chronically malnourish and 13.60% were acute malnourish. With that information World Food Programme prioritizes three areas including: 1. Strengthening Food Security, 2. Disaster Preparedness and, 3. Nutrition for child and pregnant women. They are currently operating in the rural and suburban areas of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT), Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB), East Java Provinces and Greater Jakarta. WFP-Indonesia is promoting gender equality where as they empower women to help men in terms of improving their access on food and sustainable livelihoods by implementing food-for-work, and food-for-training programs. With these women have the opportunity to contribute to household food security and having the equal participation in decision making bodies within their homes and society. And now women have a greater access to food –for-training schemes (FFT).
The concerns of World Food Programme in Indonesia is similar in the Philippines and the rest of their partner countries. Main concerns are nutrition, disaster preparedness and food security. The bigger challenge here is that how we can work things that will bring chance for Indonesia and also for the Philippines. Aside from the funding that helps a lot on the project, it is necessary that there will be a strong advocacy policy where information about WFP and their campaign may reach a bigger audience and gain possible supports to fulfill their projects. In the case of the Indonesia office they have their website is www.wfp.org/countries/indonesia for those who wanted to know more about what are the updates and projects happening now in their country. This year they targeting 355,000 beneficiaries and with the help of people online they can raise funds targeting their projected $14,812,822. While in the Philippines, WFP is targeting 856,278 beneficiaries with a fund amounting $35,850,097.
I am still studying how WFP works in the Philippines, along with Indonesia and other countries to know more on how we can fight hunger worldwide especially for children who are mostly affected with hunger. WFP Indonesia has Facebook Page and Twitter (www.twitter.com/wfpindonesia) to know more about the updates and news on how WFP partners with different sectors. For those who wanted to know about the WFP in Philippines follow www.twitter.com/WFP_Philippines and World Food Programme twitter www.twitter.com/wfp and visit the website www.wfp.org.
