Honduras Country Programme (2012-2017)

This operation has been modified as per budget revision 5 (see below)

In Honduras, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, half of the population live in extreme poverty and food insecurity. Factors such as inequitable access to land, insufficient food production, high unemployment and vulnerability to natural disasters hinder progress in addressing poverty and food insecurity.

A recent evaluation of the 2008–2011 country programme recommended improvements such as enhancing the effectiveness of interventions targeting children during the “critical 1,000-day window of opportunity”, and greater attention to capacity development with a view to gradual hand-over of the joint school feeding programme. Government support for school feeding has increased since 2004 to include 1.2 million primary schoolchildren; WFP assists an additional 200,000 children. The government-funded school feeding programme is administered through a trust fund; WFP provides technical support for procurement and logistics.

Country programme 200240 will target the most vulnerable populations in the southern and western regions, which are the poorest and most food-insecure. Its objectives are: i) enhance children’s opportunities to complete primary education; ii) prevent and reduce undernutrition among children under 5, pregnant and lactating women and people living with HIV on anti-retroviral therapy; and iii) build communities’ resilience to climate hazards through diversification of livelihoods. There are three components: i) school feeding; ii) nutritional support for vulnerable groups; and iii) agro-forestry and watershed management for adaptation to climate-related shocks. The country programme will develop capacities among government counterparts to enable an eventual hand-over, particularly of the school feeding programme. The country programme will assist 468,000 beneficiaries over five years.

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Budget revision 5 to Honduras country Programme is mainly requested in order to: extend the operation by twelwe months to allow for a transition towards WFP Country Strategic Plan; augment the energy valur of the school feeding ration by adding dates; supplement the food ration provided to some school children by fresh foods; increase the number of beneficiaries receiving cash-based transfers as an incentive to create assets under the resilience program.