ISLAMABAD, Sept 18: The United States will give $8.4 million to Pakistan through the World Food Programme to provide approximately 11,000 metric tons of wheat for over 1,600,000 people, including students of 3,200 schools.

The WFP will begin distributing food aid in 12 districts in the NWFP and Balochistan this month. An agreement to this effect was signed by the United States Agency for International Development and the United Nations World Food Programme here on Thursday. US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson and Food Minister Nazar Mohammad Gondal attended the ceremony.

The US grant will be a contribution to WFP’s $71 million food assistance programme which will be completed in one year and help some 3.1 million people.

Ambassador Patterson said the programme would benefit thousands of people affected by the rising prices of basic food items which had increased by 100 per cent in one year, making them out of reach for millions of people.

WFP’s country director Wolfgang Herbinger thanked the ambassador for her country’s support and partnership in protecting schoolchildren and families in the parts of Pakistan that are suffering most from the sudden hike in food prices in the world.

Special ‘school days’ will be organised for distribution of staples, including 50kg wheat bags, three times, between now and the beginning of the next wheat harvest in March and April next year.