Nepal's poor suffer as strikes hit food security - WFP

By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI AlertNet) - Strike action in Nepal is severely affecting the poor's ability to feed themselves, forcing many to skip meals and scavenge for food or borrow money and sell off assets to survive, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday.

Last year, there were 254 days of strikes or 'bandhs' which shut down transport services, government offices, businesses, schools, hospitals and markets. In some cases, there were 100 separate strikes in the same month, according to Nepalbandh.com, a Nepali website which monitors strikes around the country.

It recorded more than 100 strikes in April and 60 in May, with 43 strikes so far this month.

Richard Ragan, head of WFP in Nepal, said the strikes -- which are often politically motivated -- meant that roads were blocked, food was not being transported and people were not able to work, losing essential income and unable to buy provisions.

"The immediate impact of the bandhs is on the poor people in the country," Ragan told AlertNet by telephone.

"It means that people lose a day's wage and can't make money to buy food. Also, their businesses are closed, they can't travel to work, and they don't have access to markets which also means they can't purchase food if they had some money."

He said this was a serious problem in Nepal where the majority of the population spends more than 60 percent of their income on food, compared with the United States where Americans spend slightly more than 10 percent of their income on food.

Nepal, which ranks 142 out of 177 countries on the U.N. 2007/8 Human Development Index, is still reeling from a 10-year conflict that ended in 2006. More than 30 percent of the population live below the poverty line.