A woman braids her daughter's hair in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo: Matias Delacroix/AFP via Getty Images
Venezuela’s government and the United Nations’ food program have reached a deal for the international agency to directly provide meals for children in the South American country.
Why it matters: School children have been acutely affected by the food scarcity and high food prices in Venezuela. Some have fainted or even died from hunger or from eating poisonous tubers when they try to forage for meals.
- But Nicolás Maduro’s regime refused to take food aid for years, trying to prop up its own food subsidy program, called CLAP.
- CLAP boxes have been found to contain powdered milk that isn’t actually milk, while the program has been denounced by the U.S. Treasury Department as a front for profiteering from food imports.
Details: The World Food Programme said its goal is to reach 185,000 students by the end of the year and 1.5 million by the end of the 2022-2023 school year.
By the numbers: One third of the population in the South American country does not get enough to eat, according to the World Food Programme, and on average poor Venezuelans have lost 28 pounds because they have to skip meals, per an academic survey of living conditions.