The warehouses were jointly opened by WFP and Timor-Leste's Ministry of Social Solidarity (MSS) at a ceremony earlier today in Same. The warehouse in Same was newly built, while the two others, in Los Palos and Dili, have been refurbished. Collectively, the warehouses will enable a prepositioning storage capacity of more than 3,400 MT of food and non-food items.

"In a country so vulnerable to natural disasters, being able to respond quickly and effectively to emergencies is vital," said Joan Fleuren, WFP Country Director for Timor-Leste. "Quality warehouses form an important part of that capacity and we are grateful to AusAID for making funds available for this project."

As WFP is the lead UN agency for logistics, it was asked to improve storage capacity to increase Government's ability to respond to emergencies. AusAID generously donated US$180,000 for the work to be carried out.

The three strategically-placed warehouses will store prepositioned emergency relief items - food and non-food items – as well as serve as local hubs for broader coordinated responses in times of crises. The warehouse in Same will serve the south of the country, while Los Palos will serve the east, and Dili will serve central and western areas.

The warehousing support is in addition to WFP's ongoing work to provide food assistance to 290,000 people in Timor-Leste, which includes school meals, and supplementary feeding to pregnant and lactating women, infants and children under five years of age.

WFP also supports local production of fortified food, providing training to government staff, managing recovery programmes, setting up a multi-agency food security monitoring system and improving the government's logistics planning and operations system.

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. In 2010 WFP aims to feed more than 90 million people in 73 countries.

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For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):
Joan Fleuren, Representative and Country Director, WFP Timor-Leste, Mob. +670 723 1310
Maarten van Driel, Senior Logistics Officer, WFP Timor-Leste, Mob. +670 723 1312