U.N. humanitarian organizations issued a warning on Friday, stating that almost 55 million people in West and Central Africa may find it difficult to feed themselves in the coming months due to the food crisis exacerbated by skyrocketing costs.
Beyond recurring hostilities in the area, they noted that the number of people experiencing hunger during the June–August lean season has quadrupled over the last five years. They also noted that economic issues including double-digit inflation and stagnating local production have become important drivers of the crisis.
The Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF, the World Food Programme, and the United Nations children’s agency said in a joint statement that some 2,600 people in northern Mali, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and other countries are among the worst-affected.
Laptops 1000Acting now is the best course of action. The WFP’s acting regional director for West Africa, Margot Vandervelden, stated, “We need all partners to step up… to prevent the situation from getting out of control.”
The organizations stated that the level of malnutrition is frighteningly high as a result of the food shortages, estimating that 16.7 million children in West and Central Africa under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition.
Due in large part to the region’s strong reliance on food imports, things have become more difficult, especially for nations with high rates of inflation like Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
Robert Guei, the FAO’s Sub-regional Coordinator for West Africa, stated that policies should be put in place to increase and diversify local food production “to respond to the unprecedented food and nutrition insecurity.”
