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France donates 7,000 tonnes wheat to Pakistan

KARACHI: The French government has donated 7,000 tonnes of wheat valued at $1.3 million to Pakistan through the World Food Programme (WFP) Ñ the food aid agency of the United Nations system, for use in development activities and feeding of the Afghan refugees.

The handing over ceremony was held at the Port Qasim here on Tuesday aboard the French vessel MV Grouse.

The Consul General of France in Karachi, Gilles Bonnaud, handed over the commodity to Mushtaq Kazi, Director General Food, Government of Pakistan, Tahawwar Hussain, Deputy Secretary of Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Government of Pakistan.

Ms. Daniela Owen, Programme Adviser of WFP Pakistan, was also present on the occasion.

The French donation will be used to support 'food for work activities' carried out in the WFP assisted Tarbela and Mangla Watershed Management Project located in Abbotabad and Mansera divisions and in Buner district.

The project started in 1983 and assists some 8,000 poor people annually who work on various activities which include planting of trees on denuded hillsides, planting of improved fodder species, planting of fruit trees, construction of link roads and the introduction of land use techniques and methods to poor farmers.

In the year 1999, the WFP brought into Pakistan about 48,000 tonnes of food worth over $12 million to support projects focusing on primary education for girls, basic health care for expectant mothers and natural resource management.

The WFP provides aid as an incentive to increase attendance by pregnant women at rural health centres and young girls at primary schools.

About 50,000 girls in 20 poor districts regularly attend 900 primary schools with support from WFP and some 200,000 mothers and expectant women regularly attend the 700 health centres.

Over the last 20 years, the WFP had worked diligently to support natural resource management in ecologically vulnerable areas. Providing food aid in exchange for work, it in collaboration with the government and external donors, helped plant over a billion trees on the fragile hillsides and watersheds of NWFP, AJK and Balochistan to restore forest and fight soil erosion.

The WFP has been active in Pakistan since 1968 and during the last 30 years it has invested more than $1.2 billion in various development projects as well as providing food to the millions of Afghan refugees. APP