World Bank Loan Helps Lebanon Avert Wheat Crisis

Image is a representative stock photo courtesy of Paz Arando/Unsplash.

Lebanon desperately needs foreign funding to avoid total collapse. However, to unlock that funding, it has to remove subsidies on wheat.

“The wheat crisis is getting worse and worse. At the bakeries today, you can find 300 to 400 people waiting in line for one bag of bread,” Heart for Lebanon co-founder Camille Melki says.

“If the government raises or removes the subsidy, this bread [cost] will multiply tenfold.”

According to Mercy Corps, the price of wheat flour rose 209 percent following Russia’s onslaught in Ukraine, and it’s up by 330 percent since the 2019 economic crisis began. On Tuesday, Lebanon’s Parliament secured a World Bank loan to purchase wheat for the next six- to nine months.

“The government has been threatening to remove that (wheat) subsidy for the last two months,” he says.

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SOURCE: Mission Network News, Katey Hearth

CALL TO ACTION

• Pray Heart for Lebanon gets the funding it needs to meet rising operational costs.
• Pray Heart for Lebanon can continue getting supplies for its food ministry.