UN delivers nearly 170,000 tons of food to flood-hit people

UNITED NATIONS: UN agencies and their partners have delivered almost 170,000 tons of food to millions of people affected by the severe July floods, and are preparing to distribute seeds and fertilizer ahead of the planting season to enable 4.2 million people to feed themselves again, the world body said Friday.

An estimated 8 million flood-affected people are meanwhile expected to receive food aid this month, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

To date, organizations providing health care have delivered enough medicines to cover the health needs of more than 5 million people. More than 6.7 million health consultations have been recorded.

In addition, over 260,000 tents and 413,000 tarpaulins have been provided, enough to accommodate almost 467,000 households 25 per cent of those in need of shelter material.

The water, sanitation and hygiene cluster is now providing clean water for daily use to 3.7 million people, and almost 1.5 million people have benefited from distributions of hygiene kits.

Meanwhile, OCHA and the global humanitarian logistics cluster, led by the UN World Food Programme (WFP), today launched an interactive web-based tool dubbed Global Mapping of Emergency Stockpiles, which displays information on emergency relief warehouses managed by international humanitarian organizations.

The aim of the tool is to help affected countries and aid agencies identify and send emergency relief items in response to crises. It is the only existing central platform that emphasizes who has what where by region, sector, organization and organization type, OCHA and WFP said in a joint statement.

Information has so far been provided by UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and a number of governmental entities. OCHA is in discussion with other stockpile owners to expand the content of the database.

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