The World Bank issued a press release on February 11, 2023 in which it revealed that Lebanon has received the first shipment of 33,000 tons of wheat which has arrived to the Beirut Port. Said shipment was financed by the Lebanon Wheat Supply Emergency Project which was formed to ensure the availability of wheat in Lebanon. According to the World Bank, the shipment is equivalent to about one month-worth of Arabic bread consumption in Lebanon and will help rebuild the country’s wheat stock and to preserve prices of bread at an affordable level for the poor and vulnerable households. The press release noted that the aforementioned shipment will be followed by several subsequent shipments of various sizes over the coming months in order to ensure a continuous wheat supply. According to the World Bank, the project was approved in May 2022 for a total amount of $150 million, $15 million of which is in the form of a grant from the Global Concessional Financing Facility and the remaining amount in the form of a commitment by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. More specifically, the program was initiated as a response to the global market disruptions resulting from the war in Ukraine, which came at a time when Lebanon was suffering from a sharp economic and financial crisis, a rise in unemployment, an increase in poverty, a surge in inflation (especially food inflation). Furthermore, the report noted that Lebanon’s storage capacity was substantially reduced since the Beirut Port explosion and the destruction of the silos. The World Bank commented that the project is also helping develop storage solutions for wheat on the immediate term and placing the wheat sector on a recovery path on the longer-term.