The United Nations World Food Programme is today warning that unless humanitarian access is urgently granted to organizations like the WFP, catastrophic levels of hunger could hit hard in parts of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The stark warning comes ahead of the High-Level Ministerial Conference on the Central Sahel in Copenhagen on 20 October 2020.
The number of hungry people in Central America has nearly quadrupled over two years. Devastating hurricanes compounded economic shocks caused by COVID-19 leaving millions without an income and many planning to migrate.
Agricultural and coastal communities in the Dry Corridor have borne the brunt of a years-long climate emergency that was exacerbated by hurricanes Eta and Iota last year.
WFP has scaled up its emergency food assistance in Syria and Türkiye since the beginning of the crisis, reaching over 300,000 quake-affected people in both countries and plans to reach a total of close to 900,000 people.
WFP is providing families in shelters with ready-to-eat food that does not require cooking while those staying with host families receive a regular food package. There are an estimated 130,000 people on the move, seeking refuge in Hasakeh and Raqqa cities.
But the threat is not only a future concern, the results are being felt now, according to the ‘Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2022 – Urban Food Systems and Nutrition’.
The National Poverty Targeting Programme (NPTP) is Lebanon’s first national social safety net, established in 2011 and implemented by the Ministry of Social Affairs. The Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN), a US$246 million project funded through a World Bank loan, was launched in 2021 to expand safety net coverage amidst increased poverty.
The Director-General of FAO Qu Dongyu, the President of IFAD Alvaro Lario, and the Executive Director of WFP Cindy McCain visited communities who are grappling with the effects of severe weather events, which, coupled with a lack of infrastructure, are worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis, threatening farms and agro-pastoral livelihoods, and displacing communities.
The visit comes after
The results showed that 23 percent of households were food insecure, with higher levels of food insecurity among FLSEBP beneficiaries. The poverty rate increased in 2022, with a high percentage of poor households among FLSEBP beneficiaries.