“WFP is unable to scale up assistance due to lack of implementing partners and challenges reaching the hardest hit areas,” a spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Elizabeth Byrs, told a news briefing in Geneva.

“Where fighting is taking place food prices have reportedly doubled and there is a lack of cooking gas,” she added.

Ms. Byrs noted that, overall, WFP is reaching around 1.5 million people each month with its supplies, and it estimates that 2.5 million people are in need of food assistance. In November, the distribution cycle had provided aid to 1.4 million people, slightly less than the target due to poor security conditions; the December distribution cycle was still underway, so accurate figures were not yet available.

More than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in early 2011. Recent months have witnessed an escalation in the conflict, which is now in its 23rd month.

The security situation’s deterioration has led WFP to temporarily relocate its staff from its sub-offices in the cities of Homs, Aleppo, Tartous and Qamisl.

According to UN estimates, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance inside the country quadrupled between March 2012 and December 2012, from one million to four million. UN humanitarian aid planning estimates that up to a million Syrian refugees will need help during the first half of 2013, with most of these located in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt.

Despite a request last October from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) to increase the number of beneficiaries from 1.5 million to 2.5 million, WFP was unable to further scale up its assistance due to the lack of implementing partners on the ground and challenges reaching some of the country’s hardest hit areas. Its main partner – SARC – was overstretched and had no more capacity to expand further; WFP is seeking further partners on the ground to assist with its operations.

In the city of Aleppo, the majority of the population was depending on private bakeries where the price of one kilogram of bread, if available at all, had reached 250 Syrian pounds – the highest in the country – and 40 to 50 per cent higher compared to other governorates, according to WFP. Before the conflict, unsubsidized bread was priced at around 45 Syrian pounds, while subsidized bread costed 15 Syrian pounds.

There were also reports of shortages of wheat flour in most parts of the country due to the damage to mills – the majority of which were in the Aleppo area – as well as a lack of fuel for delivery, road closures and difficult access. In addition, a shortage of cooking gas was being noticed.

In her comments to journalists, Ms. Byrs also highlighted that while donors have already provided WFP with around $117 million for its activities in Syria, it needs an additional $136 million to continue feeding 1.5 million people until June this year.

With thousands more Syrians seeking safety in neighbouring countries, the UN agency is also responding to the food needs of refugees in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey with food distribution.

Elsewhere, the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has continued holding meetings in the region and elsewhere, as part of his efforts to bring about a negotiated, political solution to end the Syrian conflict. He was expected to meet with Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday evening.

Mr. Brahimi has repeatedly stated his belief in a political solution to the crisis in Syria – with the so-called ‘Geneva communiqué’ providing the basis for a peace process.

The ‘Geneva communiqué’ was issued after a meeting in the Swiss city of the Action Group for Syria, and it lays out key steps in a process to end the violence in Syria. Amongst other items, it calls for the establishment of a transitional governing body, with full executive powers and made up by members of the present Government and the opposition and other groups, as part of agreed principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition.

The Action Group is made up of the Secretaries-General of the UN and the League of Arab States; the Foreign Ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – as well as the Turkish Foreign Minister; the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; and the Foreign Ministers of Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, in their respective roles related to the Arab League.

“As we enter 2013, there is no let-up in humanitarian needs in the world,” the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, told journalists in Rome after she and other senior UN and humanitarian aid officials launched the appeal.

She added of the people in need, “They are displaced from their homes, hungry, unprotected and vulnerable, living with the consequences of natural disasters and violent conflict.”

The funding call is made under the annual Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) that, since its launch by the UN General Assembly in 1991, has become a central tool used by the world body and other aid organizations to plan, coordinate, fund, implement and monitor their activities.

This year’s total will fund emergency relief in 12 African countries, and another three in Asia, as well as the occupied Palestinian territory, according to a news release from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which Amos also heads.

“Working jointly in these 16 countries, we are strengthening our response,” said the Executive Director of the UN World Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, who joined Amos in launching the appeal.

“We are meeting the urgent need for food security and nutrition, shelter, water, health and other basic needs, while simultaneously helping communities recover from emergencies,” she added while also stressing that a “unified response can save lives and help communities become more resilient.”

In her remarks, Amos said the appeal was directed at governments, private individuals and businesses, among others, as she called on them to “contribute to saving lives in 2013.”

She highlighted that 520 UN agencies, non-governmental and other aid organizations had come together to launch the call with the aim to “deliver aid in an effective and coordinated way.”

She also noted how international responses both buttress and enhance local efforts, which she saluted, saying that communities, civil society organizations, businesses, local and national governments were the “first responders, and, throughout a protracted crisis, important providers of support and help.”

OCHA identified the 15 target countries in addition to the occupied Palestinian territory as Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

Amos detailed the pressing needs in some of those countries, saying that a million children in Yemen were suffering from acute malnutrition, 1.7 million people in Niger faced food shortages, and a half a million people driven from their homes in South Sudan needed help in addition to some two million people in that country who did not have enough to eat.

The humanitarian chief pointed to several more crises in Africa as she responded to one journalist’s question about the focus on that continent.

“I think many people have forgotten that there are continuing needs in Darfur,” she said of the western Sudanese region stricken for years by ethnic-based strife. She also highlighted humanitarian crises arising from recent strife in both Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Amos stated that last year’s CAP appeal for $7.7 billion to help 51 million people in distress remained 40 per cent underfunded.

“This means that people in need in some parts of the world have not been able to get the help they would have had we got the money,” Amos said, adding that it was too early to tell how the global financial crisis might affect funding levels this year.

“We will make the case in a vigorous way,” she added. “These needs are real; they can be seen by anyone; we recognize the difficulties that many countries face with respect to the ongoing situation, but, at the same time, we are talking about people who are extraordinarily vulnerable around the world.”

In response to a question about Syria’s exclusion from the 2013 CAP, Amos said that a separate revised appeal would be launched on 19 December for the Middle Eastern nation, where internal conflict has spawned massive humanitarian needs. She noted that a current appeal to help pay for humanitarian operations inside Syria is asking for $348 million.

With as many as 19 million people living with the threat of hunger in Africa, it comes as a surprise that food can not move more freely between African countries, expecially from fertile areas to those where communities are suffering food shortages.

The new World Bank report Africa Can Help Feed Africa: Removing barriers to regional trade in food staples says that Africa’s farmers can potentially grow enough food to feed the continent if countries remove cross-border restrictions on the food trade within the region. According to the Bank, the continent would also generate an extra US$20 billion in yearly earnings if African leaders can agree to dismantle trade barriers. The report was released on the eve of an African Union (AU) ministerial summit in Addis Ababa on agriculture and trade.

According to the report, rapid urbanization will challenge the ability of farmers to ship their cereals and other foods to consumers if the nearest trade market is across a national border.

“Africa has the ability to grow and deliver good quality food to put on the dinner tables of the continent’s families,” said Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice President for Africa. “However, this potential is not being realized because farmers face more trade barriers in getting their food to markets than anywhere else in the world. Too often borders get in the way of getting food to homes and communities which are struggling with too little to eat.”

The new report states that if the continent’s leaders can embrace a more dynamic inter-regional trade, Africa’s farmers could potentially meet the continent’s rising demand and benefit from a major growth opportunity. It would also create more jobs in services such as distribution, while reducing poverty and cutting back on expensive food imports.

Moreover, the new report notes that only five percent of all cereals imported by African countries come from other African countries while huge tracts of fertile land, around 400 million hectares, remain uncultivated.

In Africa, also poor roads blunt progress. What is more, transport cartels are still common across Africa, and there are no incentives to invest in modern trucks and logistics. The World Bank report suggests that countries in West Africa in particular could halve their transport costs within 10 years if they adopted policy reforms that spurred more competition within the region.

Other obstacles to greater African trade include export and import bans, restrictive rules of origin, and price controls. These policies are also poorly communicated to traders and officials; and this process in turn promotes confusion at border crossings.

Authorities are called to promote the establishment of a competitive market which will enhance food production and food distribution networks. The reports notes that competitive food market will help poor people the most. A good food distribution networks would benefit poor farmers and poor consumers and avoid, for example, that poor people in the slums of Nairobi pay more for their maize, rice, and other staple food than wealthy people pay for the same products in local supermarkets.

“The key challenge for the continent is how to create a competitive environment in which governments embrace credible and stable policies that encourage private investors and businesses to boost food production across the region.” said Paul Brenton, World Bank’s Lead Economist for Africa and principal author of the report.

For the time being, the World Bank Group’s continues to support trade and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. The Bank is recognized as a key source of knowledge on trade policy issues, analysis and investments for trade-related infrastructure at the country level.

The institution’s agriculture support for Africa has grown significantly over the past decade. The share of trade-related lending in total Bank lending, for example, has grown from an average of two percent in FY03 to five percent in FY12. New trade-related commitments in FY13 are expected to increase to US$3 billion, 70 percent of which will go to Africa.

There are reports of raids and looting of markets by armed groups in both South Kordofan and North Kordofan states which have recently forced more civilians to flee their homes, according to a statement issued by the office of the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Ali Al-Za’tari.

There are also reports of high numbers of people who have been fleeing to South Sudan to escape the continued fighting and severe food shortages in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, the statement added.

Al-Za’tari reiterated calls for an end to the fighting and for humanitarian access to all vulnerable civilians, especially women and children. The terrorizing of civilians within Sudan and the increase in numbers of refugees fleeing to South Sudan points to an “extremely worrying” situation, he said. “It is essential that humanitarian assistance reaches all people in need, wherever they may be located,” he added.

Last week, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that an estimated 20,000 refugees have amassed on the South Sudan border after fleeing conflict and lack of food. The recent wave of refugees brings the total number of Sudanese refugees in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state to about 100,000. Meanwhile, South Sudan’s Unity state is hosting another 38,000 refugees from Sudan’s South Kordofan state.

Al-Za’tari stressed the need for continued dialogue between all parties to facilitate a peaceful solution to the conflicts. “Ultimately, what is needed in South Kordofan and Blue Nile is for fighting to stop and for a political settlement to be negotiated. People need to be able to return to their homes and villages and rebuild their lives in dignity, safety and without fear,” he said.