The following table shows how much the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) food aid programmes in sub-Saharan Africa cost over the last 10 years and the Department for International Development's (DFID) direct bilateral contributions in each year.
Expenditure DFID contributions 1997 501.7 n/a 1998 646.9 n/a 1999 633.0 n/a 2000 637.5 3.8 2001 885.6 6.6 2002 899.4 71.4 2003 1,514.0 64.6 2004 1,381.7 76.7 2005 2,042.9 67.1 2006 1,761.9 92.7 2007 1,831.6 48.8 Total 12,736.3 — n/a = Not available.
The DFID contributions shown do not take account of significant UK funding to WFP through the following multilateral channels:
The European Commission
The EC is a very significant donor to WFP, contributing USD 250 million to WFP’s global operations in 2007 alone. Approximately, 18 per cent. of EC funds come from the UK.
The UN Central Emergency Response Fund
The UK is the largest donor to the CERF, which allows the UN to allocate resources to under-funded and rapid onset emergencies. DFID has provided over £100 million to the CERF since its establishment in 2006. WFP have received some USD 328 million of funding from the CERF for their global operations over this time.
Pooled funds
All of DFID’s humanitarian funding to WFP in Sudan and DRC is now channelled through pooled funds, which are managed by the UN. DFID has provided £129 million in Sudan and £90 million in DRC through the pooled funds since their creation in 2006. WFP has received USD 54 million and USD 16 million respectively from these funds. This change in funding channels in the two largest humanitarian operations partly accounts for the apparent downturn in DFID’s bilateral support to WFP operations in Africa from 2006 to 2007 in the aforementioned table.