World Food Programme receives 'stop work' orders from US despite waiver

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) was ordered by Washington to stop work on dozens of US-funded grants, according to an email seen by Reuters sent five days after secretary of state Marco Rubio issued a waiver for emergency food assistance.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) grants, at various stages of progression, are worth tens of millions of dollars and provide food assistance in impoverished countries including Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Haiti and Mali.

The US state department and the WFP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Several of the suspended grants are under the Food for Peace Title II programme, which spends about $2bn (R36.89bn) annually on the donation of US commodities. The programme, which makes up the bulk of US international food assistance, is co-administered by the US department of agriculture and USAID.

Just hours after taking office on January 20, Trump ordered a 90-day foreign aid pause so contributions could be reviewed to see if they align with his “America First” foreign policy. The US is the world's largest aid donor.

The state department then wrote a January 24 “stop work” cable — seen by Reuters — for all existing foreign assistance and paused new aid, but said Rubio had given an exemption for emergency food assistance. He also approved a waiver on January 28 for life-saving humanitarian help, defined as core life-saving medicine, medical services, food and shelter.

But on January 29, WFP — whose executive director is American Cindy McCain — received an email, seen by Reuters, from USAID's bureau for humanitarian assistance listing dozens of project numbers subjected to a stop work order.

A senior WFP official in Washington responded with a list of clarifying questions, according to the email. In another note, seen by Reuters, the same official raised concerns about the pause in Title II and Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) awards.

“The pause in Title II and CCC awards has disrupted WFP's huge food supply chain, affecting more than 507,000 tonnes of food valued at more than $340m (R6.26bn),” the WFP official wrote.

The official noted that some of that food was en route by sea, more was stored in 23 countries and some was in overland transport. They added “a substantial quantity of food is being loaded at ports such as Houston and other locations across the US domestic supply chain”.

“The scale of this disruption underscores the far-reaching consequences of the funding pause on global food assistance efforts. WFP is analysing the impact this has on the extremely vulnerable beneficiaries in severe humanitarian contexts that receive this lifesaving assistance,” the WFP official wrote.

The Trump administration's effort to slash and reshape American foreign aid is crippling the intricate global system that aims to prevent and respond to famine, according to humanitarian organisations.

USAID has been a target of a government reorganisation programme spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk, a close Trump ally. The Trump administration plans to keep fewer than 300 USAID staff out of the agency's thousands of staff.

Trump's incoming UN ambassador Elise Stefanik praised the WFP as “a very successful programme” when she appeared before the US Senate foreign relations committee last month. She noted that the WFP has “significant bipartisan support” in congress.