Using food-for-work programmes

Description

Food-for-work programmes involve providing food as payment to individuals participating in community projects, such as building infrastructure or restoring land. This strategy addresses immediate food insecurity while promoting local development and self-reliance. By linking food aid to productive work, it helps vulnerable populations meet basic needs, supports livelihoods, and fosters community resilience. The approach remedies hunger and unemployment simultaneously, ensuring that assistance contributes directly to both short-term relief and long-term sustainable improvements.

Context

In food-for-work activities, food is used as an incentive or part-payment for beneficiaries who participate in various projects.

Implementation

In certain World Food Programme (WFP) activities, villagers receive food rations in exchange for work as varied as: planting trees to reforest an eroded mountain-side; building a community library, making saleable crafts and building water cisterns.