KATHMANDU: Robert Kasca is the WFP Nepal Representative and Country Director. Robert has over 20 years of operational and leadership experience with WFP, the United Nations agency dedicated to fighting hunger and the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. His career with WFP started in Pakistan and shortly after in Dubai, UAE, as the Head of Operations for the Fast IT and Telecommunications Support Team (FITTEST). Since then, his work has taken him to places far and wide, including Iraq, Sudan, South Sudan and Syria, to mention a few. In WFP's Headquarters in Rome, Robert worked as IT Emergency Coordinator, and in 2012 became the Chief of Global IT Support and Services Branch. From there he took the responsibilities of Deputy Country Director Support Services in Syria, and most recently, before arriving to Nepal, he served as the Deputy Country Director Support Services and Country Director a.i. for WFP in Afghanistan.

Outside WFP, Robert has worked with the Ministry of Defense of the Government of Slovenia and was part of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in Jerusalem in the early nineties, where he was deployed on several missions to Egypt, Bahrain, Iraq and Rwanda, among others.

Robert is a national from Slovenia. He holds a bachelor's degree in Marine Telecommunications and Engineering from the University of Zagreb, and a university degree in Business Information Science from the University of Maribor, Slovenia.

The Himalayan Times caught up with him and discussed the WFP activities and situation of food security in Nepal. Excerpts:

What is the role and mandate of the WFP globally and in Nepal?

Globally, WFP follows the mandate of 'saving' and 'changing lives.' Because of the size and the media attention our operations receive in big emergencies, people often think of us as a humanitarian organization. However, since the 1960s, when WFP was just established, we have had a distinct dual mandate. The humanitarian response is a part of it, of course, and development is the other. When a catastrophic event -say a war or a natural disaster-impacts a large number of people, it is critical for us to act quickly to meet their immediate food and nutrition needs. But we also work to support communities and governments to address the underlying causes of hunger, that is, the development part, to ensure that people's lives are altered in a way that helps them to sustain themselves in the future.

A major focus of our work in Nepal is on 'changing lives'-WFP's programme in the country prioritizes nutrition for mothers and children, as over 50 percent of children under five and 41 percent of young women of reproductive age are anaemic. Once children reach school, we continue that support by helping governments provide them with hot meals, which improves their learning and health. Building the resilience of communities to reduce the impact of climate change and disasters is another important part of our work. Given the frequency with which Nepal is impacted by disasters, most notably the 2015 earthquake, WFP helps build the capacity of the government to respond to crises. Emergency preparedness and response are therefore major components of our new five-year country strategic plan. In the meantime, we continue to be the first on the ground to provide humanitarian assistance whenever there is a disaster or an emergency situation. Take the recent earthquakes in western Nepal, for example. It hit Jajarkot and West Rukum districts late on a Friday night, and our staff were already out in the field on Saturday morning, distributing emergency ready-to-eat food and, a month later, multipurpose cash assistance to 15,000 people. This is how fast WFP operates!

Can you provide us with an overview of the food security and nutrition situation globally and in Nepal?

Worldwide, there are nearly a billion people who are currently food insecure. COVID-19 and the Ukraine war are the two main factors that played a significant role in this, resulting in increased fuel costs, scarcity of fertilizers, and rising food costs. Likewise, conflict and climate shocks are two other things that continue to exacerbate food insecurity globally.

In Nepal, as per the results of the food security analysis of the households undertaken by WFP in May-April last year, 4.26 million people are not consuming an adequate diet. This means around 15 percent of the total population is not eating enough nutritious food, and it is difficult for them to put food on the table every day for their family. While this latest figure is slightly lower compared to the same time a year ago and the year before when COVID19 was at its peak, it is still extremely high and shows the magnitude of the problem. Persistent inflation is one of the main drivers of rising food insecurity. WFP Nepal's monthly market monitor of food products for December has shown that, compared to last year, prices of basic food commodities such as coarse rice and wheat flour have increased by more than 10 percent. Similarly, changing climate patterns in the form of floods, dry spells and storms are destroying crops and food supplies, reducing the availability of food and driving prices up.

How does your work contribute to achieving zero hunger in Nepal?

In Nepal, our main aim is to help the government achieve its development goals, as pinned down in the 15th and soon in the 16th development plans and fully aligned with the 2030 agenda. Our focus lies particularly on enhancing food security and nutrition through building community resilience to climate change, stronger food systems and functioning social protection systems at scale.

We are here to support the Nepali government at all levels, but in particular the municipal and provincial tiers, to work towards zero hunger. We have just commenced our new strategic plan that will span over five years in support of the government in the realms of school meals, nutrition for pregnant and nursing women, fortification of rice, building resilience against climate shocks, and emergency preparedness while maintaining a strong capacity to respond directly to emergencies.

The Nepali government is very committed to all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Goal 2. The roadmap to attain the Right to Food Act aligns WFP's work with the SDGs and the national food systems, thus also aligning its work with national priorities, providing a framework for policy dialogue, and demonstrating value for money to donors.

We have a sizable development program in place that contributes to the communities' long-term self-sufficiency and resilience building. We have collaborated with the Nepali government ever since 1970 to run the school meal programme. In addition, we work on climate change adaptation and climate smart agriculture to build smallholder farmers' resilience against a changing climate. By building local infrastructure such as irrigation canals and food warehouses, for instance, we are assisting communities in creating systems and procedures that will ultimately increase local production and make a significant contribution to the goal of eradicating hunger.

School Meals has always been WFP's flagship programme in Nepal; how has it evolved over time?

In Nepal, WFP has been delivering rice, lentils, salt and oil for school meals as part of the Midday School Meals Programme in various districts for half a decade. Our support is referred to as 'in-kind' because we deliver raw ingredients to schools, where they are transformed into hot meals. Over the years, the Nepal government has gradually taken over the WFP supported programme under a cash-based model in which Rs 15 per student per meal is provided to schools in the districts. The cash from the municipality is used to buy ingredients from local food cooperatives and prepare lunches for students from early grade learning to class five, 180 days a year.

Today, WFP operates the school meals programme in three districts in the SudurPaschim province, which it is scheduled to hand over to the local authorities by 2028. That means it will be the local authorities-who receive the school meal budget from the federal government along with local communities-who will run the show. Furthermore, we have a very fascinating project in the Kailali district named the Women in Value Change Project. These are women's cooperatives led by female farmers who sell the excess in the neighborhood markets and provide locally grown agricultural products to schools, improving community nutrition and providing additional revenue for their households.

One of the key challenges to the sustainability of the school meal programme is ensuring that the fiscal space for school meals is maintained and adequate resources are allocated at all three tiers of government. Given the price hikes and inflation over the years, the originally calculated value of NPR 15 per child per meal in 2015 does not suffice anymore and needs to be complemented. We are working closely with our government counterparts to understand the details of how much the Rs15 actually buys, in particular in the context of recent inflation trends and in rural areas. Ultimately, we advocate for an equitable approach that ensures a nutritious meal.

Has climate change impacted food security in Nepal? Is this a challenge for WFP?

Nepal is one of the country's worst hit by climate change-induced food insecurity. Changing weather patterns, including erratic rain and dry spells, are reducing the availability of food and driving prices up. For vulnerable communities, such small climate events can result in food insecurity, as they are forced to take drastic measures, including selling their belongings or taking children out of school.

At WFP, we work with governments, particularly at the provincial and local levels, to protect vulnerable communities and prepare for, respond to and recover from climate related disasters. We advocate for climate-smart villages and create assets such as irrigation systems and marketplaces by providing cash assistance in return for work on community projects. We provide smallholders with safety nets and insurance against climate extremes and disasters.

In Karnali province, through the five years long Climate Adaptation and Food Security project, we have reached out to roughly 66,000 people in seven rural municipalities with climate-smart initiatives that are more sustainable and inclusive. Also, they fit into the broader government goals to ensure farmers have the skills and knowledge to move beyond subsistence agriculture.

I would like to mention a success story from Jumla. Here, we have some remarkable female apple farmers who have learned about techniques like drip irrigation to improve water management and how to sustainably increase their apple harvests. They also received financial literacy training and were linked with agricultural marketing cooperatives to better access buyers. A warehouse constructed under the programme allowed them to store their apples longer, thus boosting post-harvest sales.

What agricultural benefits can Nepal derive from climate change?

Climate change is a double-edged sword. In many parts of the country, it has resulted in droughts, flash floods and rising temperatures, reducing crop yields. But changes in the climate have led to a variety of crops, fruits and vegetables being grown in places where they previously could not.

Recently, when I was in Upper Mustang, some farmers told me that when they were small, they never had apples on their farms. But warmer temperatures at higher altitudes have enabled people today to set up huge apple orchards. Until a few years ago, these people used to migrate to the lowlands immediately after the harvest, but now they do not migrate at all since it does not get colder until later in the year. They told me that there are new types of bugs and other pests that never before reached Upper Mustang, and of course there is much less snow.

Undoubtedly, global warming is melting the Himalaya twice as fast as the rest of the world, and Mustang is a live example. Although we can see some immediate short-term agricultural benefits due to the abundance of water and warmer temperatures, my take is that it is not sustainable in the long run.