In October, as a result of new donor support, WFP has been able to increase the value of the electronic vouchers it uses to provide food assistance to extremely vulnerable Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon to an average of US$21 per person per month – 80 percent of the full intended voucher value. This is a positive development as assistance was cut down to 50 percent on average during the previous months due to a severe lack of funding.
WFP reaches more than four million people every month inside Syria with urgently needed food and provides electronic food vouchers (e-card) to up to 1.5 million refugees in neighbouring countries.
WFP knows that host countries are affected by the burden of the refugee crisis. And, thanks to the food e-card system, WFP has injected more than US$1 billion into the local economies of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt and helped create thousands of local jobs in the food retail sector.