Responding to the request of President Martelly, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), through its Technical Secretariat in Haiti, yesterday presented a contribution of one million U.S. dollars to United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) for its activities, in support of the National School Feeding Programme (PNCS) in Haiti.

This donation will be used by WFP to purchase more than 600 metric tonnes of rice locally produced in Haiti, which is part of the meal delivered every day to school children.

This contribution aims to provide school feeding to 56,000 children in Haiti until the end of the year 2011-2012. This donation was made in Port-au-Prince, in the presence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister-designate, Laurent Lamothe who declared "[...] School feeding is a priority for the Haitian government, it indicated it as a of the strategic axes of the program 'Aba grangou' [...] concern for the lack of funds to ensure the school food in the current year, the President of the Republic, had appealed to donors on March 1st, for they help to avoid the interruption of projects [...]"

The Technical Secretariat of UNASUR in Haiti has generously responded to this call and proposed that the aid is distributed primarily in the departments of Grande Anse and the neighboring departments : "This choice is connected with interventions in other areas such as health and housing, which are included in the technical cooperation program of the UNASUR in Haiti in coordination with the Government" explained Ambassador Rodolfo Mattarollo, Special Representative of the Technical Secretariat of the UNASUR.

The National School Feeding Program in Haiti serves currently 1.5 million students, including 1.1 million directly assisted by WFP, 350,000 by the PNCS and the rest by other players and partners.

HL/ HaitiLibre