Qatar Charity's sustainable projects enhance food security for IDPs, refugees, and the vulnerable

As Qatar Charity (QC) believes in the need to enhance food security in countries suffering from natural disasters and humanitarian crises, it has worked to support farmers, promote qualitative agricultural projects and livestock breeding programs, distributes food packages to internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees, and the poor who struggle to meet their essential needs. It also has expanded its partnerships with UN organizations to address food shortage crises to help the vulnerable, IDPs, and refugees globally.

Qatar Charity implemented more than 3,000 food security projects in the period between January 2021 and October 2022, benefiting nearly 80,000 people in more than 20 countries around the world. The number of its economic empowerment projects reached about 6,000, with 46,000 beneficiaries globally. This is according to a report published in the current issue of Qatar Charity’s Ghiras magazine.

Qualitative project for Syrian IDPs

Qatar Charity implements the “Support Wheat Value Chain in North West Syria” project to contribute to meeting the wheat needs of people. The project, which is the first of its kind in northern Syria, extends comprehensive support, from providing agricultural inputs to offering bread to the local community.

The first strategic objective of this project, which is being implemented for the fourth year, is to support life-saving activities in northern Syria by providing cooked meals through mobile kitchens, meeting the food needs of vulnerable families, and distributing bread free of charge to families living in camps or poor neighborhoods and areas. Qatar Charity serves 30,000 families daily, benefiting 150,000 individuals.

This project also supports farmers, livestock breeders, and food industry professionals, helping them to recover their productive assets and supporting them with income-generating activities. Wheat and vegetable value chain projects are supported by supporting farmers with agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides) and irrigation and harvesting tools cost to increase production. Livestock breeders are supported by giving fodder to their livestock.

Project’s results

During its three phases, from the beginning of 2019 until the beginning of 2022, the project has made several achievements in the countryside of Aleppo in northern Syria. The achievements include supporting the cultivation of three stations for wheat seeds multiplication, in cooperation with the General Organization for Seed Multiplication, the rehabilitation of three wheat silo facilities, containing 36 storage cells with a capacity of up to 1,000 tons per cell in Marea, Sharran, and Al-Rai, and the installation of two mills with a production capacity of 50 tons of flour per day in Marea and Al-Rai.

Some 1,004 farmers were also supported to produce 4,000 tons of pure wheat seeds and to purchase 6,549 tons of wheat from the farmers, in addition to distributing 7,280,000 bundles of bread to the people in northern Syria, opening a bread production line with a capacity of 5,000 loaves per hour in Al-Rai, and rehabilitating another bread production line in Marea.

Improving living conditions of rural households in Somalia

In Somalia, Qatar Charity continues to implement a project to improve the living conditions of rural families in the regions of Galguduud and Bay, aiming to alleviate the suffering of those affected by humanitarian disasters. The project is expected to benefit 6,000 people, according to the report of Ghiras.

The project, which is under the second phase, seeks to improve nutritional status, address malnutrition, and protect rural communities’ sources of livelihood by providing agricultural equipment and seeds, building their farming skills, and training farmers on best agricultural practices.

Under this project, agricultural equipment (seeds, fertilizers, and manual tillage tools) is distributed to 1,000 farming families in the regions, according to the standards of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Somalia, as well as 150 local farmers are trained to build their craft capacity concerning primitive agriculture and production development mechanisms.

The project, in its first edition, which was implemented during the period from 2019 to February 2020, benefited 1,350 rural families in the city of Baidoa, Bay Region, the South West State of Somalia.

The project provided aid consisting of agricultural equipment to 1,350 professional rural farming families to secure harvest in the rainy season, in addition to providing agricultural seeds and training 120 beneficiary farmers on best agricultural practices to develop their agricultural capacities.

The assistance also included unconditional cash transfers to the targeted people for a period of three months to enable them to get food items and improve their living conditions during the harvest season.