A World Food Program without Food

(http://www.voltairenet.org/article185350.html)

The World Food Program (WFP) has discontinued its food aid program for the 1.6 million Syrian refugees due to a lack of funding. The program provided food vouchers to refugees living in the already overburdened countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt. According to the WFP, it needs $64 million to support refugees through December, and the likelihood that such funding will come through quickly seems very low. 

The WFP voucher program has already injected around $800 million into host country economies struggling to accommodate the 3.2 million refugees who have fled Syria. The program also offers assistance to the 7.6 million internationally displaced persons who remain inside Syria. Refugees were given $1 a day to spend at local stores. Although small, this source of income was essential, as in some of the host countries such as Jordan, refugees are not permitted to work. With temperatures dropping and new cuts being implemented in U.N. run camps, the timing couldn't be worse. 

(http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30275514)

Without the assistance program, refugees will demand more of local services and charities, making them less welcome in areas where they are already seen as a drain on limited local resources and a financial burden on local families. Lebanon has recently closed its checkpoints in order to prevent more refugee from entering its borders. This is because the nation is unable to take care of the 1.1 million refugees already living within its borders.

The relief agencies still operating in the area are perpetually underfunded and can only offer relief to the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, without the WFP, that number is sure to rise quickly and dramatically. Living expenses such as buying winter clothes and paying for gas for heating are rising, while informal labor like seasonal agricultural or construction work is ending. Parents will be forced to pull children out of school to save tuition and transportation costs, and many families will need to move into U.N. camps where WFP food aid is still provided, but where shelter is in the form of chilly weatherproofed-tents. Some may decide to return to Syria and re-enter dangerous conflict zones.

Many large NGOs like the Red Cross as well as the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have been unable to manage the incredible number of refugees currently displaced by the Syrian civil war. To put statistics into perspective, the number of refugees currently displaced by the conflict is the largest number since the Second World War. 

Many host governments are beginning to flounder publicly under the burden of caring for so many refugees with such little help from the international community. A few weeks ago, Jordan discontinued providing free healthcare to registered refugees, and the government is now considering cutting free education to displaced children. According to Oxfam, as of September 2014, only eleven countries had contributed over 50% of what was calculated to be their equal share of funding aid. 

(http://redcrescent.org/photos.html)