WFP chief calls for action to help poorest adapt to climate change

Rome, 13 December 2007 – With the United Nations Climate Change Conference drawing to an end in Bali, Indonesia, the Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Josette
Sheeran, called on governments and humanitarian organisations to take urgent steps to help people adapt to climate change to mitigate its effects on their lives and their children’s future.

“We are now facing a ‘perfect storm’ of challenges around the world, where climate change is combining with a boom in commodity prices, slipping levels of food aid, and the scourge of HIV/AIDS
to increase the vulnerability of more and more people,” Sheeran said, adding that for WFP, adaptation to climate change was not a choice but a reality.

Rain-dependent – Sheeran noted that the poorest and most vulnerable communities, living in countries heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture were inevitably the people most susceptible
to the effects of climate change. According to estimates by WFP’s sister agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization, 95 percent of agriculture in Africa is rain-dependent.

And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that yields from rain dependent agriculture could be down by 50 percent by 2020.

Five billion trees – WFP is already working with communities in many parts of the world to ensure that fragile food security ecosystems are kept intact and sustainable. To this end, WFP
has planted more than five billion trees over the past decades, helping to ward off desertification and to re-establish soil systems after disasters.

WFP has also worked with communities on building tens of thousands of canals and dykes, restored river beds and taken other practical steps to protect food systems, as well as working with
governments to establish drought and flood early warning systems. Just in the last few weeks, warnings helped thousands escape the worst effects of Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh.

Mitigate – A key aim of WFP operations is to provide community-based food assistance that helps people adapt to and mitigate climate change. As the agency feeds people, it also looks for
ways that will help them shift from subsistence farming to more sustainable livelihoods.

At the same time, WFP works constantly to improve productivity and prevent the degradation of natural resources.