World Food Day: Qatar Charity’s Sustainable projects enhance food security

Qatar Charity (QC) commemorated the World Food Day, which is annually observed on October 6, to promote awareness of the issues surrounding hunger and advocate collective action to highlight the need to ensure healthy diets for all. The World Food Day was marked amid the continued covid-19 pandemic, underlined that an urgent route change is needed. This day comes when farmers are suffering, and millions of people require emergency food aid. Sustainable agri-food systems, therefore, are required in order to nourish 10 billion people by 2050.Believing in the need to enhance food security in countries experiencing disasters and crises, Qatar Charity supports farmers, implements qualitative agricultural and livestock projects, and distributes foodstuffs to internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees, and the poor, in addition to expanding partnerships with UN organizations to contributing to addressing food shortage. 600,000 BeneficiariesQatar Charity provided aid and implemented projects to support food security in 29 countries, benefiting nearly 600,000 people at a total cost of approximately 30 Qatari million riyals in 2020.Supporting Farmers Qatar Charity has rehabilitated more than 90 greenhouses with an area of more than 150,000 square meters during the past five years, at a total cost of more than QR1mn, benefiting more than 550 people.Qatar Charity has recently started rehabilitating 15 greenhouses with an area of more than 20,000 square meters in cooperation with the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture.  This comes as part of Qatar Charity’s continued efforts to support the agriculture sector and small farmers in Palestine.Wheat Project for IDPs For the second year in a row, Qatar Charity continues to implement the “Support Wheat Value Chain in North West Syria” project to contribute to meeting the wheat needs of people. The project, the first of its kind in northern Syria, extends comprehensive support, from providing agricultural inputs to offering bread to the local community. The project covered the needs of 200 families.The project included rehabilitating grain silos with a storage capacity of 12,000 tons of wheat, providing a new mill with a production capacity of 50 tons of flour per day, purchasing more than 1,000 tons of grain, distributing subsidized bread, supporting farmers with essential inputs to grow wheat, and providing technical support to them through awareness sessions. Food Aid for RohingyasQatar Charity has recently distributed more than 200,000 kilograms of food items to nearly 9,000 Rohingya refugees in Bhasan Char, a remote Bay of Bengal island in the Noakhali district of Bangladesh.International PartnershipsQatar Charity signed two new cooperation agreements this year with the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to support the wheat value chain in northern Syria for the third year in a row during the 2021-2022 season. The $2mn agreements are expected to benefit 92,000 people. Last year, Qatar Charity signed a contribution agreement for US$ 1.5 million with UNRWA in support of the Agency’s food assistance program in Gaza during the COVID-19 pandemic. The deal includes home delivery of food aid and medication.