IR-EMOP Food Assistance to Drought Affected Population in Eastern Rwanda

According to Government assessment data, there are 44,000 poor households (nearly 225,000 individuals) negatively impacted by the drought in the Eastern part of Rwanda. The severity of the drought has also been confirmed by WFP field visits.While the Government of Rwanda has provided some initial emergency food assistance to some of the affected areas using its national strategic grain reserves, national resources are insufficient to cover all needs. Hence, the Government has officially requested WFP’s support.

This IR-EMOP will allow WFP to support the government in meeting the immediate food needs of 125,000 people for 30 days. This short-term relief food assistance will address stressed households’ and communities’ food insecurity and protect their livelihoods by enabling them to have access to food without sacrificing productive assets or adopting other negative coping strategies.

This IR-EMOP will be followed by a fully fledged EMOP to cover the needs of a larger portion of the affected population in the most affected areas. To inform the formulation of the EMOP, an emergency food needs assessment is planned to be fielded in the coming days.