More than half of Zambia's population still lives below the poverty line. The COVID-19 pandemic put further strain on an economy already weakened by recurrent climate shocks, falling copper prices and unsustainable fiscal policies.
In Ejeda, a village in the Ampanihy district in southern Madagascar, villagers dig holes on the Linta River to find water. It has not rained here since the end of 2019.
‘'People who own carts fetch water in the river and sell it to their neighbours," says Vital Batubilema, Head of the WFP office in Ampanihy.
Streets in South Sudan's capital Juba are aptly named: CPA, Addis Ababa, Referendum, Independence and Unity. Juba City Council says that these echo the main milestones in the country's history since 2011.
CPA is short for the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that sought to end the Second Sudanese Civil War. Several peace agreements were brokered in Addis Ababa only to be broken.
The evaluation concluded that:
WFP has performed well within a constrained funding environment in terms of the total volume of funding that it has raised. However, this trend masks disparities between large, well-funded emergencies and other crisis-affected contexts, as well as WFP’s portfolio of resilience and development work.
In May this year, WFP was forced to reduce by half the food rations it provides to refugees and asylum seekers due to insufficient funding. Current maize stocks are due to run out in December while supplies of other food commodities will be completely depleted in October without additional funding.
The announcement was made during a handover ceremony in Mount Darwin, further building on previous contributions earlier this year, including US$500,000 to support food assistance and community resilience-building activities, as well as US$350,000 towards emergency relief efforts following Cyclone Idai.
“The situation in Lesotho is very worrying. Climate change has been the driving force behind recurrent droughts that have pushed more than half a million people into a major food security crisis,” said UN Resident Coordinator Salvator Niyonzima.
Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, has recently graduated to low-middle-income country status. Despite recent economic growth, poverty rates stand at 79 percent, with 42 percent of the population living in extreme poverty.