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WFP Palestine Country Brief, October 2018

Countries
oPt
Sources
WFP
Publication date

In Numbers

US$ 2.7 m cash-based transfers made 1,680 mt of in-kind food distributed

US$25.8 m six months (December 2018 - May 2019) net funding requirements

333,959 people assisted in October 2018

Operational Context

Food insecurity in Palestine affects 22.5 percent of the population – about 1.3 million people- and is driven by limited economic access to food, arising from restrictions of movement, trade and investment, and high unemployment rates. Food prices are driven by Israeli markets, where people’s average purchasing power per person is six times higher than in Palestine, and therefore too high for poor Palestinian families to afford. As poor and vulnerable Palestinians spend more than half of their income on food, WFP’s assistance is critical to meet their food needs and prevents further deteriorations in their food security and livelihood status.

Gaza continues its trajectory of de-development. All socioeconomic indicators and humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate, with more than half of the population living in poverty and without a job. The UN foresees that Gaza will be “unliveable” by 2020. In the West Bank, the prolonged period of slow economic growth, restrictions on movement, trade, investment and access to land and water resources, together with higher food prices, continue to erode the fragile livelihoods of poor Palestinians. Poverty (13.9 percent) and food insecurity (12.7 percent), while less widespread than in Gaza, are still entrenched and more localised to pockets of land, particularly in the Southern Governorates. More than 60 percent of the Bedouin and herding communities in Area C of the West Bank are food-insecure.

Under the State of Palestine Country Strategy Plan (2018-2022), WFP aims to provide food assistance to up to 314,000 of the poorest and most vulnerable non-refugees to food insecurity in Palestine, primarily in Gaza and Area C in the West Bank where the prevalence of food insecurity is the highest. All WFP-assisted people live below the national deep poverty line of less than US$ 3.7 per day. The CSP is aligned with SDG 2 ‘Zero Hunger’ and 17 ‘Partnerships for the Goals’.

Operational Updates

• In October, WFP assisted 333,959 of the poorest and most food insecure people: 232,999 people in Gaza and 100,960 people in the West Bank with food and cash-based transfers (CBT). WFP’s food assistance enables poor households to meet a share of their daily food needs and alleviates the decline in their purchasing power. It is a fundamental safety net that keeps them from falling into deeper poverty, as well as a critical form of economic transfer allowing families to spend their meagre resources on other essentials.

• WFP is engaged in the preparation of its 2019 operational plan, which will foresee a decrease in beneficiary numbers commensurate with the year-on-year decline of its resources. The upcoming new food insecurity estimates from the Food Security Sector (to be released in November) will guide WFP’s geographical targeting.

• To the same end, WFP is working with the Ministry of Social Development to identify the poorest and most foodinsecure populations enlisted in the national social protection programme and thereby inform its prioritisation of assistance. This will entail a review and analysis of the indicators and criteria to be used for determining the eligibility for WFP’s food assistance and also for national social welfare entitlements. This exercise, which falls under the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to reform its Social Safety Net and WFP Strategic Objective 2, aims to further enhance the effectiveness of targeting and avoid duplications in the provision of assistance to targeted households.

• Together with the local NGO Palestinian Medical Relief Society, WFP delivered nutrition and health awareness training to 1,200 women, 400 men and 500 school-children within Bedouin communities living in the Hebron and Bethlehem governorates in the West Bank. Food and nutrition insecurity among these semi-nomadic populations reach 61 percent (source: WFP/UNRWA, 2016/2017). Across all five Gaza governorates and in partnership with the local NGO Ard El Insan, WFP trained 4,000 women, 1,500 men and 1,000 children on best nutritional practices and healthy eating habits.