The world's third-largest food aid donor last year was China. It
has overtaken Japan and is only behind the United States and the
European Union in giving assistance to other countries, a United
Nations humanitarian agency said yesterday.
"In the same year it stopped receiving food aid from the World
Food Program (WFP), China emerged as the world's third-largest food
aid donor in 2005," the WFP said in a statement. According to the
WFP, body global food aid grew by 10 percent to 8.2 million metric
tons last year.
And China accounted for more than half of that growth
contributing 577,000 tons of food which is a jump of 260 percent
from the previous year, the agency said, citing the latest annual
Food Aid Monitor from the International Food Aid Information
System.
"China is playing an increasingly important role in ensuring
that hungry countries have enough to eat," WFP's Senior Public
Affairs Officer Anthea Webb told China Daily last night.
"We're very impressed that it's matching its economic prowess with
generosity for the hungry." In particular, China last year sent
food to the victims of the tsunami in Sri Lanka through the WFP,
Webb said in a telephone interview from Rome, Italy.
"Donations of food made the difference between life and death
after the tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake and in Sudan and we are
extremely grateful to all who gave last year," WFP Executive
Director James Morris said in a statement.
According to the WFP the US remained the world's most generous
food aid donor providing 4 million metric tons, or 49 percent, of
all foodstuffs. Donations from the EU totaled 1.5 million metric
tons. Japan, the third-largest donor in 2004, ranked fourth in
2005, donated more than 402,000 metric tons of food, according to
the WFP statement.
Wheat and wheat flour were the main commodities donated followed
by coarse grains--mostly maize and maize meal and rice, the
statement added. China's donations were directed to the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Sri Lanka and a
dozen other countries, according to the WFP report.?
The WFP began working in China in 1979 and ended its food aid
assistance to the country at the end of 2005. Due to China's
strenuous efforts and international support at least 300 million
people had been lifted out of extreme poverty by 2005.
"With China's incredible progress on fighting hunger at home
there are surely many lessons we could apply abroad," Webb said.
The WFP is looking to China's vast wealth of talent, expertise and
energy to assist countries still grappling with hunger, she said.
"We're looking for experts in emergency relief operations and
agronomists."
Vice-Minister of Agriculture Niu Dun said earlier that China is
still a developing country with 26 million poverty-stricken rural
residents. While making its due contribution to WFP undertakings
Niu said China expected the body to continue supporting the
development of China's poor rural areas.
(China Daily July 21, 2006)