KC Concepcion reflects on Uganda visit

by **vhelski** Sun 30 Jan 2011, 1:02 pm

KC Concepcion reflects on Uganda visit

MANILA, Jan. 28 (PIA) - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) – Philippines’ National Ambassador Against Hunger, Kristina Cassandra “KC” Concepcion, embarked on her first field mission outside the country last week, where she visited WFP operations in Uganda’s impoverished Karamoja region, as well as in the grain basket district of Kapchorwa in the east of the country.

“It was an eye-opening, even life-changing, experience,” the recording artist, dancer, actress, and talk show host said on her return to Manila.
After more than two decades of conflict, peace has returned to northern Uganda. More than 80 percent of people who had been displaced by conflict have now returned to their original homes and farms. However, while Uganda produces enough food to feed its population, access to sufficient nutritious food remains a challenge countrywide.
KC’s five-day field mission allowed her to visit remote areas of Uganda where WFP is working towards lasting solutions to hunger, whilst providing assistance to the most vulnerable, hungry communities.
In addition to interacting with different WFP programme beneficiaries – from women farmers to babies in therapeutic feeding centers – she was also able to see how people lived.

In Kapchorwa, KC participated in the corn harvest, loading produce onto donkeys and stacking the food into the granary of a farmer who sells to WFP. She also visited a site where WFP is constructing a warehouse to help smallholder farmers to easily dry, clean, store and bag their maize.

Besides poverty, Karamoja is also troubled by insecurity, environmental erosion, and severe natural disasters which are partly caused by climate change. As a result, the region suffers chronic food shortages and malnutrition.

WFP provides relief assistance to people that cannot meet their basic food and nutrition needs. Its main focus, though, is addressing the root causes of vulnerability by supporting programs that strengthen and help diversify people’s livelihoods.

In Kapchorwa and other surplus-producing parts of Uganda, WFP’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) programme supports households that can meet their food and nutrition needs but require increased incomes to become fully food-secure.

WFP is committed to helping the government of Uganda and the communities it serves to find lasting solutions to hunger, applying whatever tool is most effective in a particular situation – whether it is food assistance, livelihood support, education and sensitization, or support for local production and markets.
In fact, more than 70 percent of food that WFP distributes in Uganda is bought within the country.
WFP is the single largest buyer of food and the largest quality-oriented purchaser of grain in Uganda, currently spending over US$50 million a year. (WFP/PIA9-BST/dmalcampo)

http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=1&t=1&id=14098