KATHMANDU: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed a contribution of £4.49 million (equivalent to Rs 678 million) from the United Kingdom to help some of Nepal’s most vulnerable population cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and provide food security and nutrition recovery support for their families.

The UKaid contribution, through the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), will allow WFP to support close to 65,000 people affected by the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 with cash-based assistance, the press statement issued by the WFP stated.

This assistance is part of the WFP's Livelihoods and Economic Recovery Project to help improve livelihoods and reduce food insecurity in five vulnerable districts of Province 2, Karnali and Sudurpaschim provinces in Nepal.

More than 73,000 young mothers and children in eight districts of Province 2 will benefit from a combination of nutritious food and counselling to promote nutrition education.

For those families who cannot take part in the Livelihood projects‘ cash for work’ activities, the WFP will provide unconditional cash support to protect them against resorting to negative coping mechanisms such as eating fewer and smaller meals, child labour or child marriage.

WFP Nepal Representative and Country Director, Pippa Bradford has expressed his pleasure for this timely commitment from the UK when the most vulnerable and food-insecure families in Nepal are facing an increase in food prices, decrease in income and large-scale unemployment.

The UK’s contribution to the WFP would provide immediate, much-needed assistance to more than 157,000 most-vulnerable COVID affected people desperately struggling to feed their families in some of the most remote areas of the country, the statement read.