<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011114/636cccdf9c7e80680e08bc46jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: WFP NEPAL</figcaption></figure>The Government of Japan is to provide assistance worth $3.47 million to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/grow-nourish-sustain-together-world-food-day/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">United Nations World Food Programme</a> (WFP) Nepal, to support families worst-hit by the loss of income because of the Covid pandemic. The Mother and Child Health and Nutrition Programme will fund projects in five districts of Provinces 1 and 2.
The support is in the long line of the Japanese government’s continued assistance to Nepal to improve the health and nutrition of young mothers and children. Outgoing Japanese Ambassador to Nepal Saigo Masamichi and WFP Nepal Country Representative Susan Jane Pearce signed the grant agreement. 
“This partnership between the Japanese Government, the Government of Nepal, and WFP has the potential to improve the health and nutrition of 19,000 <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-lost-covid-generation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">children</a> aged 6 to 23 months and 49,700 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers through specialised nutritious food. Community Food Banks equipped with food storage facilities will be set up targeting 25,000 households,” said Masamichi during the signing event.
Jhapa, Morang, Sunsari, Saptari and Siraha districts, prone to annual flash floods and landslides made worse by the climate crisis, are the core project areas. The assistance will also help populations whose livelihood was disrupted by the Covid-19 lockdowns and the economic collapse, mainly in rural locations where agriculture is the primary source of income for families.
A series of surveys by UNICEF Nepal and Sharecast Initiative last year concluded that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/pandemic-of-poverty/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">42% of households in Nepal have no income</a> as an impact of the pandemic. The study also showed that another 19% families have a monthly income of less than NRs10,000.
A separate study by the Ministry of Agriculture showed that nearly <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepalis-eating-less-due-to-lockdown-hardships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a quarter of families in Nepal are eating less</a>, and 6% had run out of food following the coronavirus crisis. Province 2 is among the most vulnerable of the districts suffering the impact.
The grant will further boost the ability of 2,500 government officials and health specialists to support health and nutrition services during pregnancy and childbirth, monitor child growth, and provide nutrition counselling at 100 municipal health facilities.
Says Susan Jane Pearce of WFP Nepal: “Covid-19 has had severe impacts. By supporting the production and consumption of locally available and traditionally consumed nutritious food and through shock-responsive community food banks, we hope that this project will increase dietary diversity among the poor and food insecure households and build community resilience to climatic shocks.”

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Japan to assist Nepali mothers and children

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914110/636ba5229c7e80680e0736a7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4000" height="2667"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Children in Nepal are under the risk of severe malnutrition due to loss of household income and resulting food insecurity brought on by the lockdown to control the COVID-19 pandemic.The extended closure of school means that 2.4 million children who used to benefit from the government’s school meals program are not getting supplementary nutritious food – especially in the grain deficit Far-western and Karnali Provinces.Now, the World Food Programme (WFP) with the Nepal government are distributing 1,500 metric tons of fortified rice, lentils and vegetable oil donated by the United States to school-going children from grades 1-8 in rural Nepal.The campaign will benefit families most vulnerable to COVID-19 lockdown impact in the western provinces.“The lockdown has put a far greater burden on parents to provide their children with balanced and nutritious meals at home,” says Pippa Bradford, WFP Country Director in Nepal. “These take home rations will provide an interim respite for these families until children return to school – while facilitating at-home learning.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914110/636ba5259c7e80680e0736a8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2946" height="2159"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Families in western Nepal are unable to provide enough daily food for themselves or their children, so often opt to keep the children at home rather than send them to school on empty stomachs. But many schools in the recent years have been able to motivate poor parents from food-deficit districts to send their children to school knowing that they will be fed a free lunch.Because most families in the region are subsistence farmers and do not grow enough food, many of their men are seasonal migrants to India. However, this year many of them have lost their jobs and have come home to Nepal.Says American Ambassador to Nepal Randy Berry: “The United States is proud to stand together with Nepal in supporting and protecting the most vulnerable among us. Our partnership with the United Nations World Food Program and the Government of Nepal to distribute rations to school children in Sudur Paschim and Karnali provinces will help 150,000 families through these difficult times.”In turn, school feeding program has helped enroll more children and successfully retain them as well as increase their nutritional status with healthy school lunch.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110914110/636ba5299c7e80680e0736a9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="4214" height="3001"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Since 2005, the U S Government’s McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program has been supporting the WFP school meal initiative in Nepal with a total contribution of more than $81 million, helping over 250,000 children access nutritious food.WFP has started handing over McGovern-Dole supported schools to the Nepal government, and about 95,000 students have already been integrated into the government’s national school meal program.WFP with the support of the US government is also working to ensure and widen the supply of local food to schools. Home Grown School Feeding program has focused on linking school meals to local agricultural production.

Nepal’s out-of-school children get food at home

<figure><img width="2048" height="1365" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121116/636b8c1c9c7e80680e06b2dfjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: BIKRAM RAI</figcaption></figure>The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in a survey of food security in Nepal has said that although there is sufficient stock to last till the monsoon, it predicts significant reductions in the harvest of wheat and other winter crops.It says food stocks in the markets are sufficient for three months, and the Nepal Food Management and Trading Company (FMTC) has nearly 24,000 metric tonnes of food stocks with procurement of a further 10,000 MT planned.Although healthy winter rains favoured the wheat crop, the nationwide lockdown at harvest time that has now lasted a month with indications of extension beyond 27 April, and the absence of farmhands, could reduce harvests.If the lockdown continues, it could also affect the paddy planting season with serious implications for food security in 2020. India has halted rice exports, and new export contracts with Nepali traders stopped early this month. India is also under lockdown, and farmers there also face problems harvesting winter crops, fruits, vegetables and other crops.“The COVID-19 induced national lock-down and slowdowns in all major sectors of the economy is expected to affect Nepal’s most vulnerable and food insecure populations,” WFP said in a statement on Sunday. “Massive slowdowns in the tourism, service and manufacturing sectors have resulted in widespread work stoppages and layoffs.”Although food markets remain open, food prices have gone up- with vegetables costing twice as much as before the lockdown. Dairy and poultry products are also facing problems with delivery to market and distribution, and there are reports of spoilage of products.WFP says: ‘While market supplies are sufficient overall for the time being, if this situation were to continue beyond a month, a subsequent depletion of cereal and pulses stock, especially in remote markets, could push staple prices even higher in the absence of decisive government intervention.’

COVID-19 affecting food security in Nepal: WFP

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171116/63692f7a9c7e80680e03c0aajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="933"/><figcaption>Photo: Seetashma Thapa</figcaption></figure>More than 200 women have gathered outside the district hospital in Manma, the main town in one of Nepal’s most underserved districts. It was an exhausting journey for the women who were all pregnant or carrying small babies. They are here to receive rations of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/bajhang-food-thinking,3314" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fortified cereal</a>, attend nutrition counselling and get a health check-up.As the rest of Nepal prepares for Dasain holidays with family gatherings and feasts, here in Kalikot, families struggle to feed their <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/not-catching-them-young-schools-in-rural-nepal,3773" target="_blank" rel="noopener">children</a>. It is a silent, gnawing hunger that leaves children stunted and mothers anaemic.The special food not only helps prevent malnutrition in expecting mothers and children, but also acts as an incentive to attract women and caregivers to local health facilities so that they deliver in hospital and raise healthy babies.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/octoberfest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Octoberfest</a>, EditorialWith red vermilion running through their hair and dressed in their best clothes, mothers as young as 14 have gathered to receive their cereal packs. No husbands accompany the pregnant wives, either because they are away working in India, or because they leave raising babies to the women.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171116/63692f7d9c7e80680e03c0abjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Deep-seated patriarchy in the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18119#.W78KLnszbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Karnali</a> is one of the reasons for widespread malnutrition among children. Girls are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/can-nepal-end-child-marriage-by-2030/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">married off early</a>. Their bodies have not fully developed when they give birth. Children raise children.Read also: <a style="font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.01em; background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=723#.W78K_3szbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Don't kill the Karnali with your aid</a>, Jivan Bahadur ShahiThe teenage mothers suffer from anaemia, malnutrition and have low birth-weight babies. This leads to a cycle of malnutrition: mothers give birth to stunted infants.The Karnali has the highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the country with 54.5% of children undernourished. Despite poor nutrition, only 47% of women receive antenatal care and only half the children get a nutritious diet.One of the mothers here is Basanti BK, whose husband left to work in an apple farm in India promising to send his pregnant wife money. Seven months have passed and she has not heard from him.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/festivals-of-sisterhood/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Festival of sisterhood</a>, Sewa Bhattarai and Sabina DevkotaBasanti was married at 14 and was pregnant soon after. “I did not know what to eat, there was no one to tell me, until I went to the health post. The fortified cereal gave me strength," Basanti says. She also feeds it now to her nine-month son.Ishara and Bindu BK were also married in their early teens, and now have three children each, whom they are raising singly since their husbands are away. To earn extra money, they break stones by the highway even when pregnant and after delivery. Bindu’s six-year-old daughter looks after her baby sister while she works.“When I took my daughter for her first check-up, they said she was malnourished and to feed her the nutritious flour,” said Bindu, and after three months her baby is gaining weight and is healthy.Most women like Basanti, Bindu and Ishara in the Karnali are single mothers because their husbands are away. Besides raising babies, they do all the household chores, farm, collect fodder, and also work to earn money. They face discrimination from in-laws.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-sacrifice-of-animal-sacrifices/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The sacrifice of animal sacrifices</a>, Aashish Mishra<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171116/63692f809c7e80680e03c0acjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">The terrace farms that wrinkle the steep mountains depend on rain. Crops are often destroyed by droughts, floods, hailstorms or landslides. Families then depend solely on cash their men send home from India. Remoteness, difficult terrain and poor roads mean higher prices for food.The special fortified cereal is a service provided by the government with support from the United Nations <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/mycity/2015/06/14/its-all-logistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">World Food Programme (WFP)</a>  targeted at Nepal’s most vulnerable families.When they come to the health posts, staff counsel mothers about eating locally available nutritious food and they get to take home rations of the fortified cereal. Says Pippa Bradford, WFP Nepal Director: “Although food production in the Karnali is above average this year, women from single headed households and marginalised communities do not have access or the purchasing power to buy healthy food. The cereal fills the nutrition gap.”Seetashma Thapa worked for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18119#.W78KLnszbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Feeding the Karnali</a>, Rubeena Mahato<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/go-easy-on-the-booze-this-holiday-season/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Go easy on the booze this holiday season</a>, Sonia Awale

No Dasain in Kalikot

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Japan to assist Nepali mothers and children

Nepal’s out-of-school children get food at home

COVID-19 affecting food security in Nepal: WFP

No Dasain in Kalikot