WFP Zambia Country Brief, August 2022

In Numbers
8.4 mt food assistance distributed
US$ 112,807.55 cash-based transfers made
US$ 1 million six-month (September 2022 – February 2023) net funding requirements
114,563 people assisted In August 2022
Operational Updates
WFP reached 114,563 people in August through its integrated package of humanitarian and development interventions in Zambia. Among the assisted, WFP reached 16,013 refugees and asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with food and cash assistance; 27,883 people through nutrition support interventions; 52,051 smallholder farmers through resilience strengthening interventions; and 18,616 people through social protection activities.
Nutrition promotion: WFP, working with other UN agencies, supported the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services to launch the Nutrition Sensitive Social Protection guidelines along with the Single Window Initiative guidelines and the Social Protection Communications and Advocacy strategy. Developed with WFP support, the nutrition guidelines will enable the Government to integrate nutrition components to its social protection programmes aimed at promoting good nutrition practices among beneficiaries.
WFP and the National Food and Nutrition Commission continued to implement the Healthy Diets Campaign in schools aimed at promoting good nutrition practices, with nearly 1,000 school children reached with nutrition messages across 17 schools in Mazabuka.
As part of exploring innovative ways of improving food and nutrition security in the communities, WFP has been promoting solar food dryers to enhance food processing and preservation. To ascertain demand for the solar dryers, WFP conducted an assessment among farmer groups in four agricultural camps in Monze District, with 23 groups expressing interest to purchase 33 dryers from local artisans.
Smallholder support: WFP officially closed out the Early Recovery of Drought Affected Households Project (ERDP) on 25 August at an event held in Kalomo District (Southern Zambia) and attended by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Mtolo Phiri, and the German Ambassador to Zambia, Her Excellency Anne Wagner-Mitchel, cooperating partners, traditional leaders and smallholder farmers. The project, which assisted nearly 110,000 smallholder farming households to recover from crop losses caused by the droughts experienced during the 2018/2019 farming season, was implemented for two years (June 2020 to July 2022). At the close-out ceremony, WFP handed over 15 motorbikes (bringing the total handed over to 75) to the Ministry of Agriculture to strengthen government’s extension services in Southern Province. Speaking at the event, the Minister commended WFP for its continued support to the smallholder farmers and for the donation of the motorbikes that would facilitate mobility of government extension staff to provide extension services to the farmers.
WFP continued to support smallholder farmers to access predictable markets for their produce. Since the start of the agricultural marketing season in May 2022, over 13,400 smallholder farmers (33 percent youths) sold 7,337 mt of various crops worth ZMW 34 million (about USD 2.1 million) via the WFP-supported aggregation network in 23 districts across Central, Eastern, Lusaka, Southern and Western provinces.
Social protection: Following the successful transition of the WFP-managed school feeding programme to a nationally owned Home-Grown Schools Meals (HGSM) programme in Zambia, WFP, through its Regional Centre of Excellence against Hunger and Malnutrition (CERFAM) and the School Based Programmes Unit in Italy, commenced activities to document the transition process. The documentation will focus on highlighting key experiences, innovations, best practices, and lessons learnt to inform similar exercises in other countries where WFP supports governments to implement school feeding. WFP plans to engage a consultant to document the transition process, with terms of reference already developed. As part of continued efforts to support regional humanitarian efforts, WFP obtained clearance from the Ministry of Agriculture to export 50,000 mt of food commodities from Zambia. In August alone, WFP purchased 35,000 mt of maize grain valued at over USD 10 million from private traders and the national Food Reserve Agency, for export to Zimbabwe, Uganda and other countries in eastern and southern Africa to support relief efforts.

Source: World Food Programme