EU Contributes $5.35Mln to UN Program of Fighting Hunger in Chad

According to the World Food Program, European Union has contributed 5 million euros ($5.35 million) to UN agencies to help them reach a goal of eradicating malnutrition in Chad in cooperation with the Chad government, through working on a project of locally producing fortified complementary food for children.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The European Union has contributed 5 million euros ($5.35 million) to UN agencies to help them reach a goal of eradicating malnutrition in Chad in cooperation with the Chad government, through working on a project of locally producing fortified complementary food for children, the World Food Program (WFP) said Thursday.

"Thanks to the EU’s contribution of €5 million (3,28 billion CFA Francs) the participating UN agencies are on the path to reaching Sustainable Development Goal 2 – to achieve zero hunger by 2030," WFP Chad Country Director Mary-Ellen McGroarty was quoted as saying in a WFP statement.

Chad is a country that has been suffering from a chronic problem of malnutrition, where the levels of malnutrition have reached and sometimes exceeded the World Health Organization's emergency threshold of 30 percent, despite being capable from an ecological stand point of producing local agricultural products.

The UN's Local production of complementary fortified food project will help in the process of producing local good quality food and will strengthen production capacities and the marketing of fortified products.

Chronic malnutrition can have irreversible consequences on the physical and mental health of children that might continue all the way till adulthood and thus affecting their productivity.