The World Food Programme complains that the main donor countries have provided only US$ 1.8 billion out of US$ 6.7 billion needed this year. The global economic crisis is partly to blame. For some, the costs to run UN agencies, estimated to be on average 50 per cent of their budgets, is another reason.

Rome (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it is cutting food aid to poor countries for lack of funds. The UN agency said that it had received only a quarter of its projected budget for 2009 from developed countries, US$ 1.8 billion of the projected US.7 billion operational costs this year.

Countries in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region will be the most affected. In the Asia-Pacific region alone it is estimated that 642 million people are suffering from chronic hunger.

The WFP said that as of 1 July it was forced to halve food rations provided to tuberculosis patients in Cambodia and suspend a programme to provide free breakfasts to children at 1,344 Cambodian primary schools because of higher rice prices.

North Korea is another country being affected. Here, around four million people have been cut from distribution lists, WFP spokesman Marcus Prior said.

The same thing is true for Bangladesh where the WFP has not been able to start emergency assistance programmes for 1.75 million of the most vulnerable people already suffering from acute malnutrition.

The UN WFP relies for 95 per cent on donations from governments. The largest donor is the United States with US$ 1.2 billion last year and US$ 620 million this year.

Support from European Union countries reached a high of US.3 billion last year, but for 2009 less than half of that, US4 million, has been delivered.

Other major donors to the WFP include Japan, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

Analysts note that the drastic drop in funding is a consequence of the current global economic crisis which has forced many governments to review the promises they made about fighting hunger during the latest world summits.

Some commentators also note that cuts are also raising questions about the UN’s expensive bureaucracy which on average spends more than 50 per cent of its budget on staff and offices.

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