WFP Inaugurates New Office Compound

SEMERA.- “WFP delivers food assistance to 700,000 people from our Semera office, so it was therefore a priority for us to upgrade facilities in this office, and shows the commitment that WFP has towards the Afar region and its people. We are grateful to the regional authorities for helping us to better serve people in this area,” said Abdou Dieng, WFP Ethiopia Country Director during the inauguration of the new premise.

Eighteen national staff and one international are employed by WFP in Semera, which is the newest WFP office in Ethiopia and was established in December 2011. The WFP team had been working in another location in Semera before the new compound was finished.

“I am thankful to WFP, the first UN agency to open an office in Semera two years ago. This is truly a commitment to our region and to help us improve food security,” said Ismail Ali Sirro, President of the Afar region during the inauguration.

“This facility is an important footprint for the UN in Afar, and it gives us an opportunity to scale up our effort to this region,” said Eugene Owusu, UN Resident Coordinator in Ethiopia.

The WFP Semera office oversees WFP activities in all five zones of Afar, including the provision of school meals to more than 80,000 children and the distribution of monthly food rations to 25,000 refugees from Eritrea. WFP also assists more than 472,000 people in the region under the Productive Safety Nets Programme (PSNP) as well as nearly 159,000 who receive relief assistance.

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food in emergencies and working with communities to build resilience. In 2013, WFP assisted more than 80 million people in 75 countries.

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For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):

Stephanie Savariaud, WFP/Addis, cell +251911201976