Nigeria

Nearly 55 million people in West and Central Africa will struggle to feed themselves during the lean season between June and August 2024, according to a March 2023 food security analysis. In a joint statement on Friday, UN humanitarian agencies warned that the number of people who are food insecure in the Sahel and beyond has increased by four million compared to the November 2023 forecast and has quadrupled in the last five years.

While the world's farmers produce more than enough food to feed the planet's 8 billion people, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said "hunger and malnutrition are a fact of life" for billions, as 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.  In a message ahead of Wednesday's World Food Day, Guterres said 733 million people worldwide lack food because of "conflict, marginalization, climate change, poverty and economic downturns.

The lives of more than 35 million people in the Sahel region are being affected by a complex and interdependent pattern of crises, exacerbated by deteriorating security, political instability, and the effects of climate change, leaving them in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection. UN agencies warn that lives will be at risk if aid organizations are not given the resources they need to respond to these crises and help the region's most vulnerable people.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that catastrophic flooding continues in the West and Central Africa region, affecting some 7.1 million people across 16 countries. In an update on Monday, OCHA said that Chad, Niger, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are the most affected countries, accounting for 80 percent of the total number of people affected.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is warning of surging needs for more than 3.4 million displaced people and their hosts communities in the face of recent destructive flooding in Africa’s Sahel region and beyond. In Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Cameroon above-average rain falls and flooding have killed hundreds, displaced thousands and affected millions.

With the onset of the rainy season, severe flooding in Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria has significantly worsened the situation of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in affected areas, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). UNHCR spokesman William Spindler on Friday reminded government authorities of the importance of including displaced people in national response plans.

The third High Level Conference on the Lake Chad Region has concluded Tuesday with reaffirmed commitments from Lake Chad Basin countries and international partners for a coordinated, regional and sustainable response, supported by humanitarian and development organizations. More than US$500 million (€458 million) in aid has been pledged to support joint actions at the local level.

Children, refugees and internally displaced people around the world are paying the price for the funding crisis that has gripped the international aid sector - made much worse by radical cuts by the United States - the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warned on Friday. Brutal funding cutbacks to the humanitarian sector are putting millions of lives at risk, with immediate and devastating consequences for the most vulnerable.

The United Nations, the Government of Cameroon and the humanitarian community have jointly launched the 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for the country, where 3.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance this year. The Plan, released this week, targets 2.3 million vulnerable women, girls, men and boys in the most affected areas and requires US$371.4 million.

More than 40 million people in West Africa - predominantly in the Sahel - and parts of Central Africa are struggling to feed themselves in the 2024 post-harvest season. This number of acutely food insecure people is expected to rise to 52.7 million by mid-2025, including 3.4 million people facing emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4), according to a recent analysis by Cadre Harmonisé. In a joint statement on Friday, UN agencies called for scaled-up humanitarian action and durable solutions to hunger.

With no political solution in sight, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warns that Niger’s political crisis could rapidly deteriorate into a humanitarian emergency as attacks by non-state armed groups (NSAGs) continue and sanctions imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the country begin to take effect. Meanwhile, 45 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), working in the Sahel country, are calling on the international community to introduce humanitarian exemptions to the collective sanctions imposed against Niger.

The World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have warned in a joined statement Friday that WFP will be forced to make additional cuts to already reduced food assistance to refugees in Chad in April and may have to completely suspend assistance by May without immediate and sustained funding. WFP is appealing for $142.7 million over the next six months to maintain its refugee support program. 

The number of people experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity and requiring urgent food and livelihood assistance has increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2022, a new report said today.  Over a quarter of a billion people were estimated to face acute hunger last year because of conflict, economic shocks and weather extremes related to the climate crisis, with the Ukraine war contributing to the increase.

Africa is bearing an increasingly heavy burden of climate change and disproportionately high costs of essential climate adaptation measures, according to a new World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report released on Monday. The report also warns that the continent faces disproportionate risks from climate change-related extreme weather events and patterns, causing massive humanitarian crises.

190 million children in 10 African countries are at the highest risk from a convergence of three water-related threats – inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); related diseases; and climate hazards – according to a new analysis released Monday by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The triple threat was found to be most acute in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Somalia.

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. 

A new shocking record of 383 aid workers killed in 2024 must be a wake-up call to protect all civilians in conflict and crisis, and to end impunity, said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday, marking World Humanitarian Day. Most of the aid workers killed last year were national staff members who were attacked in the line of duty or in their homes while serving their communities.

Officials in Chad say urgent international help is needed to save the lives of more than 2 million of the most vulnerable people caught in a severe humanitarian crisis caused by conflict and climate shocks. The Sahel country is one of the poorest nations in the world, and food is particularly scarce now as hunger peaks in the June-August lean season between harvests.

Acute food insecurity is set to increase in scale and severity in 18 hunger hotspots, a new United Nations early warning report said on Wednesday. The report highlights the urgent need for humanitarian assistance to prevent famine in Gaza and Sudan, and further deterioration of the devastating hunger crises in Haiti, Mali and South Sudan. It also warns of the lingering effects of El Niño and the looming threat of La Niña, bringing more climate extremes that could disrupt livelihoods.

Five United Nations agencies have called for urgent action to protect the most vulnerable children in the 15 countries hardest hit by an unprecedented food and nutrition crisis. The appeal was published in a joined statement Thursday by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO).