Ukraine: UN appeal includes $183.5 million for urgent food and agricultural livelihoods assistance

FAO Director-General highlights need to safeguard access to food, reinforce food security.

The United Nations flash appeal in support of Ukraine released Tuesday seeks to provide food and agricultural livelihoods assistance as well as cash for urgent needs to some 2.8 million people in a bid to avert a food security crisis there, alongside a raft of other humanitarian measures.  

Among these, 1.3 million people will receive cash transfers for meeting urgent needs, including food. Another 1.5 million people will be reached by partners in the Food Security and Livelihoods Cluster – co-led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) – with in-kind donations of food and agricultural inputs. To do this, the partners in the Cluster require $183.5 million. 

“In 2021, one in four people in Eastern Ukraine were already food insecure as a result of various challenges and the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.1 million people in need of food and agricultural assistance,” the FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said, expressing his concern about the potential impact of the current emergency on access to food and the possible expansion of food insecurity among affected communities.