US aid to tackle rising famine meets bottleneck at White House

‍David Beasley, newly-appointed head of the World Food Program (WFP), is sounding the alarm on famine conditions spreading across four countries, namely South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and Yemen. The US Congress has already approved an additional one billion dollars to help the 20 million people at risk of starvation in this year's budget, but the money in need is now stuck in a bureaucratic deadlock.

Beasley, who is also the former Republican governor of South Carolina, has been witnessing the scale and gravity of a crisis that's been called the worst since the end of World War II by the UN. Beasley is now urging the White House to do more.

Beasley stated at the Center for Strategies International Studio (CSIS) on Monday that if Trump wants to put "America first" in international and national security interests, he will provide funds in the global food and humanitarian program because “for every dollar we spend here, it saves us multiple dollars in military operations.”

While the funds have been identified by the US Congress, they haven’t been released yet. But since famine is a matter of time and life, “every week people are dying and those funds are critical to be released immediately,” said Steve Taravella, senior spokesperson of the WFP.

According to the UN, 20 million people are facing starvation, the majority of them being children. The new heads of the WFP are sparing no efforts in encouraging donor governments to give more.

(CGTN)