Crossing the world's toughest terrain to deliver lifesaving food.
WFP doesn’t just operate its own fleet of ships, aircraft and trucks to deliver lifesaving food assistance.
The agency’s logistics experts will employ whatever means necessary to reach communities struggling to survive chronic hunger and poverty.

“WFP staffers will use donkeys and elephants to get the job done. ”
In Nepal, WFP is utilizing the moutain-climbing expertise of local porters to reach families cut off by landslides and road blockades caused by the recent earthquake. Dubbed Operation Mountain Express, the relief effort will provide employment opportunities for up to 4,000 members of Nepal’s mountaineering and trekking associations.
“We have the goods, but they have the expertise, the people and the insider knowledge that we desperately need,” the WFP’s emergency coordinator Richard Ragan said.
“This is about delivering relief, creating a safe and sustainable trail network and employment.”
As the logistics arm of the U.N., WFP leads the international community in innovative ways to deliver food, including parachute drops in South Sudan, e-vouchers in Lebanon and high-energy biscuitsduring natural disasters.
From remote mountaintops in Bhutan to conflict zones in Syria and South Sudan, WFP staffers are overcoming a variety of challenges in the field to reach people in need.
In fact, at any given moment WFP has approximately 5,000 planes, 70 aircraft and 20 ships that are delivering food — and hope — where it’s needed most.
Because WFP staffers are trained to do whatever it takes to reach hungry families across the globe.
- In Cambodia, elephants are used to haul WFP food through the country’s dense jungles. (CWFP/Jim Holmes)
- In addition to local porters, WFP is using helicopters to deliver food and medical supplies to earthquake survivors in Nepal. (CWFP/Angeli Mendoza)
- A WFP ship arrives in Yemen during a recent humanitarian ceasefire in May 2015. In addition to food assistance, the ship carried fuel supplies and other ad agencies during a sudden fuel shortage caused by ongoing fighting. (CWFP/Dina Elkassaby)
- In the dry climate of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, camels are one of the most effective means of transporting WFP food aid. (CWFP/Jacques Higgins)
- In Pakistan, WFP uses helicopters to reach remote mountaintop communities that are inaccessible by road or river. (CWFP/Keith Ursel)
- At lower altitudes, WFP uses mules in Pakistan to ferry food to rural villages. (CWFP)
- A barge in Myanmar carries bags of lifesaving WFP grains to men, women and children in need. (CWFP/Tony Banbury)
- Heavy snowfalls and extreme weather are a regular occurrence in rural Kyrgyzstan, where donkeys are used to transport food to impoverished families struggling to survive a harsh climate and disastrously short agricultural season. (CWFP/Maxim Shubovich)
- When snowstorms hit Zaatari camp in Jordan in January, WFP used electronic vouchers to help refugees immediately purchase food and winter clothes from local markets. (CWFP/Joelle Eid)
- When no other means are necessary, WFP launches airdrops using its own fleet of planes to reach hungry families (CWFP/George Fominyen)
This article first appeared on the World Food Program blog and was republished with permission.

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