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[JOHANNESBURG, 30 November 2006] - A funding shortfall faced by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) could force thousands of vulnerable Namibian children to go hungry in the coming weeks. "It's an unjust and preventable tragedy that children - especially orphans - become the victims of funding shortfalls," said John Prout, WFP Country Director for Namibia. "The international community should not forget that a hungry child in Namibia is every bit as desperate as a vulnerable child in the rest of the world." It was already too late to ensure an uninterrupted flow of food aid during December to the 90,000 children WFP has been feeding, but even a US$1 million cash donation could help resume their rations in January. According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), around 120,000 Namibian children under the age of 17 have lost one or both parents, of which about 57,000 have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. WFP regional spokesman Mike Huggins said it has been "extremely difficult to raise money for the smaller countries like Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland in the region". Since reopening its Namibia office last year, specifically to provide support to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in the north where HIV/AIDS prevalence is up to 40 percent, the agency has not received a single donation towards its operation. Instead, WFP has been using internal untied multilateral donations to fund activities, hoping the international community would support these critical feeding programmes. The food aid agency is facing a shortfall of $4 million for its operations in Namibia until April next year, and needs a total of $9 million until the end of 2007. WFP also faces a funding shortfall of $48 million for programmes in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe that assist about 4.5 million people. "As new problems emerge in different parts of Africa and the rest of the world, donor focus has shifted away from southern Africa and all our programmes across the region have been affected by the reduced availability of resources," said Prout. WFP has been working with the Namibian government for the last 18 months to set up programmes to feed children in the country's six northern regions, but now that the programmes are underway, funding has dried up at the critical point of the 'lean season', when food from the last harvest runs out. The food aid agency provides a monthly take-home ration to each child registered with the programme, which includes maize meal, corn-soya blend, cooking oil and pulses.