The Executive Director of the World Food Programme, (WFP), has approved a budget increase of US $ 17.09 million for the Protracted Relief and Recovery Operations (PRRO) for Sri Lanka by bringing the total budget of the PRRO to US $ 134.9 million for the year 2009, the Sri Lanka Embassy in Rome announced yesterday.

It added that the WFP’s PRRO helps sustain disaster-hit communities as they re-establish livelihood and stabilise food security. The new protracted relief and recovery operation for Sri Lanka for the period 2009–2010 aims to provide food and protect livelihood of displaced people, returning internally displaced persons and those affected by the conflict but living in their own homes.

Under the continuing WFP’s operations, the agency will provide rations to over 280,000 people accommodated in temporary welfare centres. In the recent months, WFP has also scaled up the provision of additional fortified food to all children under the age of five years and for pregnant and lactating women in the temporary camps.

Ms. Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of WFP, in conveying the increased budget of the PRRO to the government of Sri Lanka has assured the desire of the WFP to continue its cooperation with the Government of Sri Lanka to stabilise food security and restoration of the livelihood of IDPs.

Sri Lanka’s Ambassador Hemantha Warnakulasuriya welcomed the continued support and cooperation of the WFP to Sri Lanka, a food deficit country emerging from a conflict, for its effort to eradicated hunger and malnutrition and restore livelihood of IDPs. He further added that this is an acknowledgement of the efforts of the Government led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, to improve the living conditions of IDPs and restore their livelihood.

All activities under the PRRO will be implemented through the Ministry of Nation Building and Estate Infrastructure Development, which will have primary responsibility to implement the PRRO, ensuring sustainability through integration with government policies.

The WFP, a Rome based UN agency, is the world’s largest humanitarian organisation fighting hunger worldwide, the Embassy said.