Humanitarian needs in Sri Lanka continued to rise sharply in 2022 due to political and economic upheaval, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said in its latest report.
The FAO’s response overview report for June- December 2022 says Sri Lanka is facing a rapidly growing food security crisis, and one in four people are already facing food insecurity.
Since June 2022, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has scaled up its emergency and resilience interventions, reaching more than 62 640 households (244 300 people), it said.
The FAO further said that the following is the organization’s planned response,
- Provide 201,148 households (784,477 people) with a total of 10,057 tonnes of urea to enable them to produce approximately 774,000 tonnes of paddy rice. This intervention will primarily target vulnerable farming households in areas that witnessed low yields during the previous Maha season.
- Provide 53,000 farming households (206,700 people) with unconditional cash transfers (USD 84/household) to cover their basic food and livelihood needs during the lean season.
- Provide 997,000 paddy farming households (3.9 million people) with 36,000 tonnes of triple superphosphate to restore agricultural production during the upcoming 2023 Yala season.
- Provide 5,058 vulnerable fishing households (19,727 people) from the most vulnerable districts with unconditional cash transfers (USD 141/household) to enable them to meet their immediate food and nutrition security needs.
- Support the most vulnerable and food insecure households with severely malnourished children by establishing 2,500 backyard gardens and facilitating capacity-building activities on improved nutritional and dietary practices, to enhance food production and nutrition at the household level.
Full report: FAO SL Response Overview (June-December 2022) (NewsWire)