World Food Programme Egypt

September 1962, northern Iran. An earthquake strikes the area of Boein Zahra. More than 12,000 people die. Thousands of houses are destroyed. Cataclysmic for its victims, the tremor is also a baptism of fire for the World Food Programme: the institution has only existed for a matter of months. Even so, it quickly sends survivors 1,500 metric tons of wheat, 270 tons of sugar and 27 tons of tea. Created in 1961 (at the behest of US President Dwight Eisenhower) as an experiment to provide food aid through the UN system, WFP is to be reassessed within three years. As crises multiply, the experiment proves its worth. A typhoon makes landfall in Thailand. Newly independent Algeria must repatriate and feed its war refugees. In every case, WFP rises to the task. Its mission is emergency aid, but also rehabilitation. A first development programme is launched in 1963 for Nubians in Sudan. That same year, WFP’s first school meals project – in Togo – is approved. The principle of food aid as a central plank of emergency and development aid gains ground. In 1965, WFP is enshrined as a fully-fledged UN programme: it is to last for “as long as multilateral food aid is found feasible and desirable”. Subsequent decades consolidate WFP’s role. Crises spill over the years, revealing hunger’s deadly prevalence, marking the conscience of humanity. But catastrophe spurs resourcefulness. The logistics of food aid are revolutionised. During the long famines which affect the western Sahel in the 1970s, WFP uses everything in its power – from car to camel, from road to river – to assist those in need. Thirty cargo aircraft, drawn from 12 national air forces, take to the airs. Ethiopia’s famine of 1984 further concentrates minds and means: WFP delivers 2 million tons of food. In 1989, Operation Lifeline Sudan is launched: leading a consortium of UN agencies and charities alongside UNICEF, WFP releases 1.5 million tons of food into the skies above was has since become South Sudan. The dawn-to-dusk, 20-aircraft, three-sorties-a-day airdrop remains, to this day, the largest in history. It saved hundreds of thousands of lives.