West Africa is facing its worst food crisis in a decade, with 27 million people suffering from hunger, a figure that could rise to 38 million by June if urgent action is not taken - 11 humanitarian organisations (including Save the Children, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Oxfam) warned on Tuesday 5 April, the day before the conference on the food and nutrition crisis in the Sahel and Lake Chad organised by the EU and the Sahel and West Africa Club (see EUROPE 12925/13).
In a joint statement, they urge governments and donors to “immediately close the $4 billion funding gap in the UN appeal for West Africa, to save lives” and recall that the 2021 plan was only 48% funded.
The UN estimates that 6.3 million children aged 6-59 months will be acutely malnourished this year (up from 4.9 million in 2021) - including more than 1.4 million children in the severe acute malnutrition stage, NGOs say.
While food prices have risen by 20-30% in the last five years in West Africa and food reserves are dwindling in the Sahel, the crisis in Ukraine is making the situation dangerously worse. According to the FAO, food prices could rise by a further 20% worldwide, an unbearable increase for already fragile populations. In addition, the crisis is likely to cause a significant drop in wheat supplies for six West African countries that import at least 30% - and in some cases more than 50% - of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine.
“There should be no competition between humanitarian crises. We fear that by redirecting humanitarian budgets to the Ukrainian crisis, we risk dangerously aggravating one crisis to respond to another”, comments the regional representative of Action Against Hunger, Mamadou Diop. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)