Funding constraints mean that the World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to limit emergency aid to only 6.2 million of the most vulnerable people in need across West Africa, scaling back from an initial target of assisting 11.6 million, the United Nations agency said on Wednesday. Millions in the Sahel will be stranded without aid as the lean season sets in and hunger starts to peak.
The Central Sahel countries of Mali and Chad will be hit the hardest, with 800,000 people at risk of resorting to desperate measures to cope. Coping strategies include engaging in survival sex (sex for food), early marriage, or joining non-state armed groups (NSAGs).
In June, the World Food Programme kicked off a large-scale emergency food and nutrition assistance operation in the Sahel. WFP had initially targeted 11.6 million women, men and children in Burkina Faso, Chad, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and north-eastern Nigeria from June to September 2023.
But funding constraints have forced WFP to roll out assistance for only the most vulnerable people - with a focus on refugees, newly displaced people, malnourished children under 5, pregnant women and breastfeeding women and girls.
“We’re in a tragic situation. During this year’s lean season, millions of families will lack sufficient food reserves to sustain them until the next harvests in September, and many will receive little to no assistance to tide them through the grueling months ahead. We must take immediate action to prevent a massive slide into catastrophic hunger,” said Margot Vandervelden, Regional Director ad interim, for Western Africa.
Food insecurity has reached a ten-year high in West and Central Africa, affecting 47.2 million people during the June-August lean season - including 45,000 people in Burkina Faso and Mali facing catastrophic hunger, according to the latest Cadre Harmonisé analysis. Malnutrition rates have also surged, with 16.5 million children under 5 set to be acutely malnourished this year – an 83 percent rise from the 2015-2022 average.
Conflict remains a key driver of hunger in the region, leading to forced population displacements that have emptied out entire villages and limit communities’ access to land for farming. Conflict is also spreading across the region and into coastal countries, risking a spread of instability into new and previously stable areas.
In just six months, the number of people fleeing violence in the Central Sahel and seeking refuge in four Gulf of Guinea countries has nearly quadrupled, rising from 30,000 in January to 110,000 people in June.
“We need a twin-track approach to stop hunger in the Sahel – we must address acute hunger through humanitarian assistance, while tackling the structural causes of food insecurity by increasing investments in resilient food systems and expanding government social protection programs,” Vandervelden said.
The Sahel region is facing one of the fastest-growing humanitarian crises in the world. And at the same time, it is one of the most forgotten. Armed conflict, deteriorating security, political instability, and widespread poverty are the main drivers of unprecedented humanitarian needs, particularly in the Central Sahel region. This deteriorating humanitarian emergency is further compounded by global food insecurity and the impact of the climate crisis. Rapid climate changes are causing natural disasters to occur with increasing frequency and severity.
The latest wave of displacement in the region has pushed the total number of people forced to flee to beyond 10 million people. As of 2023, more than 8.6 million people are internally displaced within their own country in the Sahel, most of them within Burkina Faso (2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs)), Nigeria (3.6 million IDPs), and Cameroon (1 million IDPs). At least 1.6 million people have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
To ensure adequate response to the emergency needs across five Central Sahel countries over the next six months, WFP requires US$ 794 million.
The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization. The UN agency, awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, is saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to support people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change. The World Food Programme works in over 120 countries and territories. For millions of people worldwide, WFP assistance can make the difference between life and death.
Further information
Full text: WFP funding crisis leaves millions stranded without aid as dire hunger crisis grips West Africa, World Food Programme, press release, published July 5, 2023
https://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-funding-crisis-leaves-millions-stranded-without-aid-dire-hunger-crisis-grips-west-africa