Saudi Arabia supports 140,000 Ukrainians with hot meals through the UN World Food Programme

The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief) contributed $10 million to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to support Ukrainians affected by the war with daily hot meals in 1,200 institutions across the country.

The agreement was signed between HE Dr Abdullah Al Rabeeah, Royal Court Advisor and Supervisor General of KSRelief, and WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain.

Saudi Arabia's donation will help provide 50 million meals for residents in institutions supported by WFP, such as hospitals, shelters for internally displaced persons, orphanages, psychiatric and geriatric facilities, and other public or private organizations caring for the most vulnerable Ukrainians. Many of these institutions have faced increased strain and budget shortfalls because of the war and massive internal displacement.

"We're grateful that KSrelief chose to support a vital component of our emergency programmes in Ukraine- which provides relief to the most vulnerable Ukrainians while also strengthening the local institutions and organizations that care for them," said WFP Country Director a.i. in Ukraine, Marianne Ward.

"We are pleased to be part of this important emergency programme to respond to the urgent humanitarian needs of the affected population in Ukraine. KSrelief humanitarian assistance will provide lifesaving food assistance to the most vulnerable communities throughout the country," said Engineer Ahmed Al Baiz, KSrelief's Assistant Supervisor General of Planning and Development.

The contribution will enable WFP to procure and deliver approximately 7,600 metric tons of food commodities, including flour, pasta, buckwheat, oatmeal, peas, sugar, and oil – all of which are bought inside Ukraine to support the local economy and food systems. These commodities are then complemented by other foods bought directly by the institutions to prepare nutritious daily meals for residents and people under their care.

Over the next six months, WFP plans to provide food assistance to 210,000 vulnerable Ukrainians through its institutional feeding programme. The contribution from KSrelief will cover a significant portion, approximately 67 percent, of the programme's needs – supporting 140,000 Ukrainians.

In the last year WFP's institutional feeding programme supported 460,000 Ukrainians in Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Chernivtsi, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zakarpattia, Zaporizhzhia, and Zhytomyr oblasts of Ukraine.

Institutional feeding is one of many ways WFP supports Ukrainians affected by the war- WFP also distributes food boxes in areas closest to the frontline, where food is hard to find or very expensive, distributes cash assistance to vulnerable Ukrainians across the country, and is supporting the safe release of mined agricultural land in the Kharkiv region to help farmers and food producers resume work. WFP also chartered 25 vessels to export Ukrainian grain to countries in need through the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the Grain From Ukraine initiative.