In Northern Darfur an estimated 80,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) live in Abu- Shouk Camp in Al-Fashir, Sudan. Al-Fashir is the capital of Northern Sudan. While the stability of the region is still in flux (four UN peacekeepers were killed earlier this month in an ambush) surprisingly there is enough food in the marketplace where the World Food Programme can provide vouchers to displaced families to buy foods like oils, meats, sugar, vegetables, and cereals from local traders and merchants.
Here is a woman in the Abu-Shouk camp with her World Food Programme voucher. Vouchers are a stark contrast to direct food aid and distribution, a food assistance program the World Food Programme is moving away from in the region. People have more choice over the variety of food they buy for their families and they have more dignity purchasing the food. Furthermore, the merchants and traders, of whom many are women, also benefit from the voucher system by bolstering the local economy.
The World Food Programme will feed close to 3.3 million people in the Darfur region this year according to global news agency, AFP.
The World Food Program (WFP) has replaced the direct distribution of food to the IDPs for a voucher system where each family can exchange its value for products such as sugar, salt, lentils, oil, cereals, meat, chicken and dried tomatoes. The center hosts 12 local vendors who distributes these products to the IDPs.
Photo by Albert González Farran – UNAMID
Learn more about the World Food Programme’s cash and vouchers programs at www.wfp.org/cash-and-vouchers
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