Te Huoy, 65, who earns money collecting beer cans, plastic bottles and other recyclables, holds out the food she has left for the next two meals for herself and two grandchildren, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, April 11, 2008. Photographer: Jason Gale/Bloomberg News 
Te Huoy, 65, who earns money collecting beer cans, plastic bottles and other recyclables, sits in the door frame of her home in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, April 11, 2008. Photographer: Jason Gale/Bloomberg News
Thomas J. Keusters, the World Food Programme's Cambodia representative, poses for a photograph outside the WFP warehouse in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, April 11, 2008. Photographer: Jason Gale/Bloomberg News 
A mother and child pose for a photograph in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, April 11, 2008. Photographer: Jason Gale/Bloomberg News
A child collects plastic bottles to sell for recycling in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, April 11, 2008. Photographer: Jason Gale/Bloomberg News Bloomberg.com
Apr 23 08
By Jason Gale
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Thirteen-year-old Pin Oudam gets a free breakfast of rice, fish and yellow split peas every morning at his school in Kampong Speu, Cambodia's poorest province. Next week he won't.
The World Food Program cut off rice deliveries to 1,344 Cambodian schools last month after prices doubled and suppliers defaulted on contracts. Schools will run out of food by May 1, depriving about 450,000 children of meals, the WFP estimates.
``Over time, this will result in higher malnutrition rates and lessen the physical and mental development of these children at a critical period in their lives,'' says Paul Risley, a Bangkok-based spokesman for the United Nations agency.
Record rice prices are forcing some relief agencies to cut rations. WFP, which helped feed 960,000 people in Cambodia in January, is limiting aid to only the neediest people in the country, including tuberculosis and AIDS patients, pregnant women and babies. Yesterday, the agency said its representatives in 78 other countries were facing similar choices.
That may leave Pim with an empty stomach. His grandmother, Nov Yim, estimates she will need 180 kilograms (400 pounds) of rice to feed a family of nine until the next harvest begins in September. A 50-kilo bag costs about 150,000 riel ($38) and may rise further, she says.
``At those prices, I can only afford half of what I will need,'' says Yim, 61. ``Without the extra rice, my children and grandchildren will go hungry.''
Suppliers Renege
The WFP was forced to end the Cambodian school program because suppliers didn't honor contracts to deliver 4,000 tons of rice at $390 to $450 a ton, says Thomas J. Keusters, the agency's representative in Cambodia. Other local dealers quoted prices of $620 a ton that were out of the agency's reach, he says. A year ago, the WFP paid about $260.
The program aims to keep kids in primary school and prevent them from being dragged into the workforce or prostitution.
About 69 percent of the children in Kampong Speu province, 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Phnom Penh, leave school before completing the sixth grade.
Te Huoy, 65, doesn't want that to happen to the two grandchildren, ages 4 and 14, she's raising in a Phnom Penh slum.
Huoy earns 3,000 to 5,000 riel a day selling empty beer cans and other garbage from the streets of the capital and says it's barely enough to pay for rice, fish and sausages. She spends three-fourths of her income on food, up from half six months ago.
``I'm already old and will die soon,'' says Huoy, who never received an education. ``My hope is that my grandchildren can continue to go to school.''
Rising Budget
The WFP originally budgeted $3.4 billion to feed 73 million people worldwide this year. Last month, it appealed for an additional $500 million to cover higher food costs. That shortfall was revised to $756 million this week.
In Sri Lanka, two of the Rome-based aid agency's suppliers defaulted on contracts in the past 10 days, Risley says. In East Timor, where the government supplies rice to the WFP, authorities haven't been able to purchase the cereal from Vietnam because of a ban on exports from that country.
Other relief agencies are also feeling the pinch.
Net food aid flows have been declining for more than a decade, and subprime mortgage losses that led to 1.5 million home foreclosures in the U.S. last year may reduce cash donations, says Chris Conrad, a director of World Vision International's food programming group in Johannesburg.
Global food aid deliveries dropped to 6.7 million tons in 2006 from a high of 17.3 million tons in 1993, according to a 2007 report from the WFP.
``The pie is getting smaller,'' Conrad says. ``For years, everybody was saying the U.S. or other developed economies could feed the world. I don't think they can anymore.''
Exports Banned
In Cambodia, retail rice prices stabilized at about 1,800 riel a kilo, up from 1,300 riel normally, after the government banned exports last month, says Khiev Bory, a deputy director in the Ministry of Planning. Cambodia's farm ministry predicts a rice surplus of 1.48 million tons this year.
``Rice is available in Cambodia,'' Bory says. ``No problem.''
While there is enough food in some parts of the country, it's too expensive for most poor people, Conrad says. Grandmother Yim says she pays about 67 percent more for her rice than the price quoted by Bory.
Rice accounts for almost two-thirds of the calories consumed by Cambodia's 14 million people.
In 2005, Cambodians had a life expectancy of 58 years, the lowest in Asia, and more than a quarter of adults were illiterate, according to the UN's 2007-2008 Human Development Report. Some 37 percent of children under 5 were stunted because of poor nutrition and 7 percent suffered from malnutrition.
``We have the silent tragedy of children who are malnourished because they don't get enough food in their growing years,'' says Sharon Wilkinson, Geneva-based Care International's country director for Cambodia who oversees more than $8 million in aid projects. ``We are looking at a growing disaster.''
No comments:
Post a Comment