World Food Programme In Ghana Welcomes Its New Representative And Country Director

Ms. Rukia Yacoub has assumed her position as Representative and Country Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Ghana.

She brings to her post a wealth of experience in implementing, managing and coordinating humanitarian and development programmes, both in least-developed and lower-middle income countries. She worked as WFP Deputy Country Director in Yemen from 2014-2016, and in Egypt from 2009-2014. During a five-month period in Yemen, she acted as Country Director managing a large emergency operation which provided life-saving food assistance to over six million people. She has also worked in Rwanda, South Sudan, Italy and Switzerland.

Ms. Yacoub’s development work in Egypt, a lower middle-income country, is particularly relevant to Ghana at this stage of the country’s development. As country director, she aims to focus on developing WFP’s Enhanced Nutrition and Value Chains project (ENVAC), a cutting-edge model programme that links nutrition, agriculture and food-processing, and will assist almost half a million people over five years. Working with private sector agro-processing companies and smallholder farmers, ENVAC uses a market-based approach to provide specialized nutritious foods to vulnerable women and children to prevent stunting.

Ms. Yacoub also wants to expand WFP’s take-home ration programme which offers an incentive for adolescent girls in food-insecure areas to complete junior high school. Take-home rations not only help girls break out of the cycle of hunger and poverty and secure a better future, but also help battle gender inequality.

Ms. Yacoub has a Master of Science in Human Nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is an Eritrean national and is married.