NAIROBI, July 13 (BSS/Xinhua) -- The United Nations (UN) World Food Program (WFP) yesterday appealed for urgent funding to cover a 40- percent shortfall in the agency's 477 million-U.S. dollar budget amounting to 189.35 million dollars for operations in the Horn of Africa, including vital food for growing numbers of refugees in Kenya and Ethiopia.

In a statement received in Nairobi, WFP said it is urgently scaling up the delivery of highly fortified, supplementary food products especially targeting the first 1,000 days of life.

"We also urge the continued support for the longer term initiatives that will help communities living in the Horn of Africa to break out of the vicious cycle of drought and disaster," WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in the statement.

The drought afflicting the Horn of Africa region has left millions at the mercy of hunger, threatening the livelihoods of farmers and pastoralists, and putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of children at risk.

Protecting the brains and bodies of young children, and pregnant and lactating women through special nutritional food is the agency's top priority.

"We are working closely with governments and communities and
key partners, such as the UN children's agency UNICEF, and the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees, to ensure young lives are saved,"
the statement said.

The drought in the wider Horn of Africa has also affected
Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and parts of Uganda, with up to 10
million people in the region in need of humanitarian assistance.

WFP has been preparing for this drought cycle and scaling up
through the past half year. The agency's network of more than 30
offices and 1,200 staff in the Horn of Africa, mostly based at
the community level, serve as a backbone for national and global
action to save lives.

"Working in partnership with national governments and non- governmental organizations in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and Uganda, we are delivering more than half a million metric tons of food to over 6 million people across this region, a number that we anticipate could rise to up to 10 million people in need of food in the months ahead," Sheeran said.

According to WFP, drought in the Horn of Africa is becoming more frequent and communities that used to have the relative luxury of several years of regular rainfall to recover from the occasional year of drought are now learning to live in an almost constant state of food insecurity due to a lack of water.

The shift in weather patterns that afflicts the Horn of Africa region means that alongside the periodic delivery of emergency food aid, WFP also need to support a broader approach based on providing food assistance that builds resilience, buffers communities from the impact of frequent droughts, and
acts as an investment in longer term solutions to hunger, the statement said.