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	World leaders need to prioritize humanitarian funding as acute hunger hits record levels by Carl Skau Deputy executive director of the World Food Programme   The United Nations World Food Program has been forced to cut food, cash payments and assistance to millions of people in many countries because of “a crippling funding crisis” that has seen its donations fall by about half as acute hunger is hitting record levels, a top official said Friday.   Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program, told a news conference that at least 38 of the 86 countries where WFP operates have already seen cuts or plan to cut assistance soon — including Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and West Africa.   He said WFP’s operating requirement is $20 billion to deliver food assistance to reach 171.5 million people in great need, but it was being forced to plan for between $10 billion and $14 billion this year.   “We’re still aiming at that, but we have only so far this year gotten to about half of that, around $5 billion,” Skau said.   He said humanitarian needs were “going through the roof” in 2021 and 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine and its global implications. “Those needs continue to grow, those drivers are still there,” he said, “but the funding is drying up. So we’re looking at 2024 being even more dire.”   “The largest food and nutrition crisis in history today persists,” Skau said. “This year, 345 million people continue to be acutely food insecure while hundreds of millions of people are at risk of worsening hunger.”   Carl Skau said conflict and insecurity remain the primary drivers of acute hunger around the world, along with climate change, unrelenting natural disasters, persistent food price inflation and mounting debt stress — all during a slowdown in the global economy.   He urged the agency’s traditional donors to “step up and support us through this very difficult time.”   Asked why funding was drying up, Skau said to ask the donors. “But it’s clear that aid budgets, humanitarian budgets, both in Europe and the United States, are not where they were in 2021-2022”.   Mr. Skau said that in March, WFP was forced to cut rations from 75% to 50% for communities in Afghanistan facing emergency levels of hunger, and in May it was forced to cut food for 8 million people — 66% of the people it was assisting. Now, it is helping just 5 million people, he said.   In Syria, 5.5 million people who relied on WFP for food were already on 50% rations, Skau said, and in July the agency cut all rations to 2.5 million of them. In the Palestinian territories, WFP cut its cash assistance by 20% in May and in June. It cut its caseload by 60%, or 200,000 people. And in Yemen, he said, a huge funding gap will force WFP to cut aid to 7 million people as early as August.   In West Africa, where acute hunger is on the rise, Skau said, most countries are facing extensive ration cuts, particularly WFP’s seven largest crisis operations: Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon.   He said cutting aid to people who are only at the hunger level of crisis to help save those literally starving or in the category of catastrophic hunger means that those dropped will rapidly fall into the emergency and catastrophe categories, “and so we will have an additional humanitarian emergency on our hands down the road.”   “Ration cuts are clearly not the way to go forward,” Skau said.   He urged world leaders to prioritize humanitarian funding and invest in long-tern solutions to conflicts, poverty, development and other root causes of the current crisis.   http://www.wfp.org/stories/2023-pictures-ration-cuts-threaten-catastrophe-millions-facing-hunger http://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2023/12/13/wfp-aid-food-cuts-mean-people-hunger-crisis-around-world   Hunger Hotspots: FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity, November 2023 to April 2024 outlook   The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warn that acute food insecurity is likely to deteriorate further in 18 hunger hotspots – comprising a total of 22 countries during the outlook period from November 2023 to April 2024.   Burkina Faso, Mali, South Sudan and the Sudan remain at highest concern levels. Palestine was added to the list of countries/territories of highest concern due to the severe escalation of conflict in October 2023. These hotspots have populations that are facing or projected to face starvation (Catastrophe, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification [IPC]/Cadre Harmonisé [CH] Phase 5) or are at risk of deterioration towards catastrophic conditions during the outlook period, given they have populations already facing critical food insecurity (Emergency, IPC/CH Phase 4) and are facing severe aggravating factors. These countries require urgent attention.   Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Pakistan, Somalia, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen are hotspots of very high concern. All these hotspots have a high number of people facing or projected to face critical levels of acute food insecurity, coupled with worsening drivers that are expected to further intensify life‐threatening conditions in the coming months.   Since the May 2023 edition, Chad, Djibouti, the Niger, Palestine and Zimbabwe have been added to the list of hunger hotspot countries/ territories, while the countries in the Dry Corridor of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) and Malawi remain hunger hotspot countries. The countries/territories and situations covered in this report highlight the most significant deteriorations of hunger expected in the outlook period, but do not represent all countries or territories with high levels of acute food insecurity.   Armed violence, in particular the trend of increased civilian targeting, will likely continue to underpin the ongoing upward trajectory in global displacement. The ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip are expected to further intensify and exacerbate the already dramatic humanitarian implications for the population in the outlook period, with the risk of potentially wider regional implications.   Instability and violence continue to surge in the Sahel region, from the recent coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and the Niger to the unabating conflict in the Sudan affecting neighbouring countries like Chad.   Between July and September 2023, the region accounted for 22 percent of all global fatalities generated by conflict. The requested withdrawal and ongoing drawdown of peacekeeping missions from Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia could amplify security voids, permitting increased non‐state armed group (NSAG) activities and attacks against civilians, and could cause constraints to humanitarian operations.   Insecurity and conflicts are poised to exacerbate already restricted access to, and availability of, food – through displacement, the disruption of markets and livelihoods, and especially the reduction or abandonment of cultivated areas, contributing to deepening protracted food crises.   International food prices remain high by historic standards, and are expected to come under increased upward pressure in the coming months due to oil price dynamics and the impact of El Nino conditions on agricultural production.   Ongoing or planned reductions and gaps in emergency food, agriculture and livelihood assistance affect several hunger hotspots of very high concern and highest concern, such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Palestine, Somalia, the Syrian Arabic Republic and Yemen, other hunger hotspots, such as Malawi, and countries or situations that require monitoring, such as Uganda and Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh).   Weather extremes, such as heavy rains, tropical storms, cyclones, flooding, drought and increased climate variability, remain significant drivers of acute food insecurity in some countries and regions.   The El Nino climatic shift has already had a negative impact on various regions, notably Southeast Asia and Latin America, and is anticipated to persist in the upcoming six months, notably affecting regions in East Africa, Southern Africa and Latin America. Continuous monitoring of forecasts and their impacts on production remains critical.   Urgent and scaled-up assistance is required in all 18 hunger hotspots to increase access to food and protect livelihoods. This is essential to avert a further deterioration of acute food insecurity and malnutrition. In the hotspots of highest concern, humanitarian support and actions are critical in preventing further starvation and death.   http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/hunger-hotspots/en/ http://www.wfp.org/stories/hunger-report-sounds-alarm-emergencies-risk-going-forgotten-amid-crisis-palestine http://reliefweb.int/report/burkina-faso/hunger-hotspots-fao-wfp-early-warnings-acute-food-insecurity-november-2023-april-2024-outlook http://www.wfp.org/publications/wfp-global-operational-response-plan-update-9-november-2023   Hunger Hotspots: FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity, June-November 2023   Acute food insecurity is set to increase in magnitude and severity in 18 hunger "Hotspots" comprising a total of 22 countries, for the period June to November 2023 a new UN early warning report has found.   The report spotlights the risk of a spill-over of the Sudan crisis - raising the risk of negative impacts in neighbouring countries, shows that deepening economic shocks continue to drive low- and middle-income nations deeper into crisis, and warns that a likely El Nino climatic phenomenon is raising fears of climate extremes in vulnerable countries around the globe.   The report also found that many hotspots are facing growing hunger and highlights the worrying multiplier effect that simultaneous and overlapping shocks are having on acute food insecurity. Conflict, climate extremes, and economic shocks continue to drive more and more communities into crisis.   The report, 'Hunger Hotspots - FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity issued today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) calls for urgent humanitarian action to save lives and livelihoods and prevent starvation and death in hotspots where acute hunger is at a high risk of worsening from June to November 2023.   "Not only are more people in more places around the world going hungry, but the severity of the hunger they face is worse than ever," said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program.   "This report makes it clear: we must act now to save lives, help people adapt to a changing climate, and ultimately prevent famine. If we don't, the results will be catastrophic," Mr Skau warned.   "Business-as-usual pathways are no longer an option, if we want ensure that no one is left behind." said QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General. "We need to provide immediate interventions to pull people from the brink of hunger, help them rebuild their lives, and provide long-term solutions to address the root causes of food insecurity," he added.   The report warns of a major risk of El Nino conditions, which meteorologists forecast to emerge by mid-2023 with an 82 percent probability. The expected shift in climate patterns will have significant implications for several hotspots, including below-average rains in the Dry Corridor of Central America, and raises the spectre of consecutive extreme climatic events hitting areas of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.   The spill-over from the crisis in the Sudan is driving massive population displacement and hunger among people forced from their homes in search of refuge and those hosting them -- the report warns. More than one million people are expected to flee the country while an additional 2.5 million inside the Sudan set to face acute hunger in coming months.   Sudan was already hosting over one million refugees -- and if the conflict persists hundreds of thousands are likely to return to their counties of origin -- many of which are already in the grips of underfunded and protracted refugee crises, compounded by social, political and economic stressors.   Supply routes for commercial and relief goods in and out of Port Sudan are being disrupted by insecurity, putting in jeopardy humanitarian assistance flows and regional relief efforts, the report notes.   Disruptions to trade, cross-border commercial activities, and supply chains risk also driving up prices and inflation and depleting foreign exchange reserves in several countries -- particularly in South Sudan -- a country that relies on Port Sudan for both commercial and humanitarian imports, as well as vital oil exports.   The report warns that displacement into neighbouring countries and disruptions to trade risk also driving tensions among displaced people, those hosting them and new arrivals, as many hard-hit countries are already grappling with significant numbers of displaced people competing for limited livelihood and labour opportunities -- particularly Chad and South Sudan - where fragile sociopolitical environments are at risk of deteriorating.   Economic shocks and stressors continue to drive acute hunger in almost all hotspots, reflecting global trends that are carrying over from 2022 when economic risks were driving hunger in more countries and for more people than conflict was. These risks are largely linked to the socioeconomic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ripple effect from the war in Ukraine.   2023 is expected to bring a global economic slowdown amid monetary tightening in high-income countries -- increasing the cost of credit, weakening local currencies, and further exacerbating the debt crisis in low- and middle-income economies.   The International Monetary Fund projects global GDP growth at 2.8 percent in 2023 -- the lowest level in ten years besides the COVID-19 induced plunge in 2020. Sub-Saharan Africa GDP will also grow 0.3 percent less than in 2022. Low- and middle- income countries are expected to be hit the hardest by the projected slow growth in their main export markets, alongside inflation rate hikes in high-income economies that will rely heavily on exports to advanced economies.   With global food prices likely to remain elevated compared with historical standards in coming months, macroeconomic pressures in low- and middle-income countries are unlikely to ease. This means that the subsequent drop in purchasing power will negatively affect families' access to food in coming months in many hotspots.   Key Findings   According to the report, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen remain at the highest alert level. Haiti, the Sahel (Burkina Faso and Mali) and Sudan have been elevated to the highest concern levels; this is due to severe movement restrictions to people and goods in Burkina Faso, Haiti and Mali, and the recent outbreak of conflict in the Sudan.   All hotspots at the highest level have communities facing or projected to face starvation, or are at risk of sliding towards catastrophic conditions, given they have already emergency levels of food insecurity and are facing severe aggravating factors. These hotspots require the most urgent attention, the report warns.   The Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,Ethiopia, Kenya, Pakistan and Syria are hotspots with very high concern, and the alert is also extended to Myanmar in this edition. All these hotspots have a large number of people facing critical acute food insecurity, coupled with worsening drivers that are expected to further intensify life‑threatening conditions in the coming months. Lebanon has been added to the list of hotspots, joining Malawi and Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) that remain hotspots.   Scaling up humanitarian action to prevent disasters   To avert a further deterioration of acute hunger and malnutrition, the report provides country-specific recommendations on priorities for immediate emergency response to save lives, prevent famine and protect livelihoods, as well as anticipatory action.   Humanitarian action will be critical in preventing starvation and death -- particularly in the highest alert hotspots, but the report notes how humanitarian access is constrained by insecurity, bureaucratic barriers, and movement restrictions - posing a major challenge to humanitarian responders around the globe.   The report also stresses the importance of strengthening anticipatory action in humanitarian and development assistance - ensuring predictable hazards do not become full-blown humanitarian disasters.   http://www.wfp.org/publications/hunger-hotspots-fao-wfp-early-warnings-acute-food-insecurity-june-november-2023 http://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/increasing-risk-of-hunger-set-to-spread-in-hotspot-areas/en http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/hunger-hotspots/en/ http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/ Visit the related web page
	With 333 million people facing acute food insecurity, WFP faces a 60 percent shortfall in funding by WFP, New Humanitarian   Dec. 2023   With 333 million people facing acute food insecurity, WFP faces a 60 percent shortfall in funding to address urgent needs.   What WFP cuts mean for people in hunger crises around the world. (New Humanitarian)   Amid an unprecedented global hunger crisis fuelled by climate change and conflict, the World Food Programme’s bleak funding outlook has forced it to make deep cuts to the assistance it provides to many people experiencing acute hunger around the world.   “Today, WFP is facing a 60% funding shortfall,” a WFP spokesperson told The New Humanitarian via email on 13 December. “Nearly half of 86 WFP country operations have already implemented, or plan to shortly implement, significant reductions in the size and scope of life-saving food, cash and nutrition assistance programmes.”   Globally, more than 333 million people are facing acute food insecurity. The cuts to WFP programming could push 24 million more people into that category over the course of the next year, the UN agency estimated in September.   A series of often overlapping factors are driving the current global hunger crisis, including the effects of the climate crisis, conflict, disruptions to the global food supply chain caused by the war in Ukraine, sky-high inflation, and slow post-COVID-19 pandemic economic recoveries.   But hunger has deeper structural roots too. Food security systems in many colonised countries were weakened as communities were forced to grow export cash crops to suit the demands of colonial powers. In the post-colonial period, agricultural policies remained focused on exports at the expense of local needs, while global organisations pushed farmers to adopt industrial technologies that can erode food sovereignty. Hunger elimination was further undermined by the unequal trade system, by land-grabbing, and by the conditional lending practices of global financial institutions.   One of the world’s largest humanitarian agencies, WFP raised a record $14.1 billion last year – a substantial increase over the $8 billion it reported in 2019. But the funding hasn’t been able to keep pace with rising needs or the pace of inflation, which increased the agency’s procurement costs by 39% between 2019 and 2022.   For 2023, WFP says it needs $23.5 billion to fund its global operations but is projecting it will receive only $10 billion, a spokesperson told The New Humanitarian.   An expected, sector-wide “donor reset” could also see funding decrease significantly after years of growth, meaning the lean times at WFP – and their consequences for people facing hunger – may be here to stay for the foreseeable future.   A recent “Hunger Hotspots” report from WFP and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicts that acute food insecurity is likely to worsen in 18 hunger hotspots through April 2024, with highest concern of starvation in Burkina Faso, Mali, Palestine, South Sudan, and Sudan.   Over the course of the last several months, The New Humanitarian spoke to WFP staff and dozens of people in countries around the world who rely on the agency’s rations and cash assistance to better understand the impact of the cuts on those living on hunger’s edge.   Here’s a region-by-region breakdown:   Asia and the Pacific   Over half of the people in the world facing moderate to severe food insecurity reside in Asia and the Pacific, where the number of acutely food insecure people rose from 62.2 million in 2021 to more than 69.1 million by the end of 2022.   WFP’s cuts are having a particularly severe impact in countries where years-long crises are overlapping with disruptions to the global food supply chain, rising inflation, natural disasters, and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events linked to the climate crisis.   In Afghanistan, for example, the cuts have meant that WFP has been forced to choose “between the hungry and the starving”, Philippe Kropf, head of communications for the agency in the country, told The New Humanitarian during an aid distribution event in Kabul in September.   Kropf said some 15 million Afghans are currently facing some kind of hunger, but that WFP would only be able to reach three million of them as the country’s winter set in. The agency has had to drop 10 million Afghans from its assistance rolls in 2023.   There is “a new face of hunger” in Afghanistan, according to Kropf, one that is popping up in urban centres, where people were previously able to rely on blue and white collar salaries to feed their families.   Up to 900,000 jobs were lost in the country following the Western withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in August 2021.   Kropf said the new urban poor were among the first who lost assistance due to the WFP cutbacks. With its limited resources, the UN’s food agency has prioritised particularly vulnerable groups, such as widows, households headed by women, and children.   For those who continue to receive support, the monthly cash assistance amount WFP provides to households has also been cut from 5,000 afghanis (about $72) to 3,200 afghanis (about $46). That amount is intended to cover food costs for two weeks, rather than a full month. Because of the funding cuts, WFP is not able to provide even those still receiving aid a full monthly ration.   Razia, one woman at the distribution, who only provided her first name and was in her 30s, said she would use the money to try and feed her 11-person household. “Realistically, this will only buy us some flour and oil. That’s it,” she said.   Razia was grateful for the help she had received from WFP over the past four months, but said it just doesn’t go very far. “You try and try, but each month 3,000 afghanis will only really buy you a couple of items,” she said.   Kropf described Razia as one of the “fortunate ones” as her family is at least continuing to receive some assistance after the cuts.   The situation is also dire in Bangladesh, where around 900,000 Rohingya refugees who fled a campaign of genocidal violence by the military junta in neighbouring Myanmar are packed into sprawling tent settlements and overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar.   WFP has had to cut the assistance it provides back to just $8 per month – or $0.27 per day – from $12 at the beginning of the year, which was already considered the bare minimum people needed to be able to survive.   Mohammed Zonaid, who has lived in Cox’s Bazar since 2016, told The New Humanitarian that 2023 has been the worst year for Rohingya there. Zonaid, who shares his shelter with eight other members of his family, said the drop in financial assistance has shrunk the diets of people in the camps.   When families were receiving $12 per person, they could buy rice, lentils, onions, salt, cooking oil, and eggs each month. Now, families can only afford rice, cooking oil, and salt, according to Zonaid. “We are 100% dependent on what WFP provides us,” he added.   Africa   Multiple regions on the African continent are experiencing food crises due to the same overlapping effects mentioned above, and due to the long-term disruption of traditional food security systems by external forces during the colonial and post-colonial periods.   According to a new regional food security analysis, nearly 50 million people will face hunger in West and Central Africa in mid-2024, an increase of 4% from the same period this year. Conflict is driving this high number, according to the analysis, with the nutritional situation particularly worrying in Burkina Faso and Mali, where military juntas are battling jihadist insurgents.   In East Africa, 65 million people are facing acute food insecurity. Drought and flood events in the Horn of Africa region are among the most recent proximate causes, with Somalia suffering over 40,000 excess deaths last year, half of which may have been children under five. In Ethiopia, the impact of the war fought primarily in the northern Tigray region continues to be felt, with recovery hampered by the aid freeze ordered by WFP and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) over allegations of large-scale food theft. Hunger rates have also soared in Sudan since conflict broke out in April between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).   In Chad, WFP is struggling to feed more than 540,000 Sudanese refugees from Darfur who fled to the east of the country between April and November, escaping massacres and acts of alleged ethnic cleansing by the RSF. As RSF atrocities continue, that number will only increase, while WFP said that food aid to 1.4 million people, including many of the newly arrived refugees, will end in January because of a shortage of funds. The UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, reports that 5.7 million people in Chad are food insecure, with 2.1 million suffering from acute hunger.   In September, The New Humanitarian witnessed a delayed food distribution operation in Ourang camp, one of the hastily built refugee settlements near the border town of Adre, which opened in June to accommodate Sudanese refugees. Many of those in need failed to receive assistance. “The number of refugees was much higher than the [distribution] lists,” said a frustrated WFP official, who asked not to be named.   The operation’s start was postponed by several days as aid trucks struggled to navigate eastern Chad’s rough roads, increasing the anxiety of the 44,000 refugees in Ourang waiting for rations.   “We received some sorghum sometime after we arrived in Chad [in June], but nothing since,” said Um Zuhor Adam Osman, a 19-year-old from El Geneina, the capital of Sudan’s West Darfur state. “It’s very difficult for us. Some people in the camp have received food, but we haven’t yet. The children eat only once a day.”   Malnutrition is widespread among the new arrivals. MSF supports a 250-bed paediatric ward in Adré hospital, which is always full.   “The kids were fine before. They never had to go to hospital when we were in Geneina,” said Zeinab Yacoub Arbab, a 29-year-old mother of two who lives with her family in the Ourang camp. “Everything was available there. But now we can’t feed them and ourselves properly. We left with nothing and don’t have money to buy food on the market. We are totally dependent on aid, and what we receive is not enough.”   In Uganda, WFP has had to cut the rations it provides to refugees several times since 2020. The country hosts more than 1.5 million refugees, one of the largest refugee populations in the world. The WFP cuts have led people to go hungry and contributed to factors pushing many families to return to their countries of origin, even when they are not stable or safe.   WFP introduced its latest cuts in July after rolling out a new system based on refugee vulnerability. Those considered most vulnerable now get 60% of what WFP calls basic survival rations; the moderately vulnerable get 30%; and the least vulnerable get nothing.   Refugees told The New Humanitarian that the successive cuts and new “prioritisation” system have left them struggling to meet basic needs, especially as changing weather patterns make it harder for them to farm around their settlements.   In Bidi Bidi, a large refugee camp in northwestern Uganda, Loy Mama said her family has been eating only one meal a day to make the meagre rations they receive as members of category two last as long as possible.   “This food is not enough for me and these children,” Mama told The New Humanitarian during a visit to Bidi Bidi in August. “I do not know how I will complete a month.”   Moses Nyang, a South Sudanese refugee in the Adjumani settlement, which is also in the northwest, said the prioritisation system has had a negative impact on community cohesion.   “It has set refugees against themselves,” said Nyang. “It compromises our peaceful co-existence. You are getting something; I am not getting something. What do you expect my attitude towards you to be?”   Middle East and North Africa   The Middle East relies heavily on food imports, exposing countries with food insecurity due to war and economic collapse to new fluctuations in global food prices due to the war in Ukraine and ongoing supply chain issues. Increasing heat waves and droughts make conditions even worse, with local farms producing less food and income.   An April World Bank report predicted that economies in the Middle East and North Africa would grow at a slower pace this year, with double-digit food inflation hitting poorer households and threatening food security.   "The report estimates that close to one out of five people living in developing countries in MENA is likely to be food insecure this year,” said Roberta Gatti, World Bank Chief Economist for the MENA region, in a statement released with the report. “Almost 8 million children under 5 years of age are among those who will be hungry. Food price inflation, even if it is temporary, can cause long-term and often irreversible damage.”   That’s not taking into account the war in Gaza, where 63% of people were estimated to be food insecure even before Israel began bombing and laying siege to the enclave in October – following the deadly attack and hostage-taking by the Palestinian political and militant group Hamas. A recent WFP assessment found that, with around 85% of the population forced to flee their homes, extremely limited and irregular aid access, and no commercial goods allowed in by Israel or Egypt, food consumption levels are “extremely alarming”.   People desperate for food have broken into UN warehouses; and at the end of a December ceasefire WFP warned that renewed fighting “will only intensify the catastrophic hunger crisis that already threatens to overwhelm the civilian population”.   Some of the countries in the region where WFP works have long-standing problems with food insecurity and poverty. Yemen, home to one of its largest interventions in the world, has been on the edge of famine more than once since its war began in 2015. As of the end of October, 13 million people in a country of around 29 million were receiving food assistance, although low funding meant “reduced rations equivalent to 41%” of the standard food basket.   In early December, WFP announced it was pausing its general food distributions in northern parts of the country controlled by Houthi rebels, due to limited funding and “the absence of an agreement with the authorities on a smaller programme that matches available resources to the neediest families”.   Even before these changes, WFP estimated that food insecurity – as of October – was down slightly from the previous year: 50% of households it surveyed in parts of the country controlled by the internationally recognised government were still unable to meet their minimum food needs – the number was 46% for households surveyed in parts of the country run by the Sana’a-based Houthis.   The situation is also growing increasingly dire in Syria, where conflict, economic collapse, the climate crisis, and the aftermath of earthquakes earlier this year are overlapping with global factors and severe aid underfunding to drive a hunger crisis. A WFP spokesperson told The New Humanitarian by email that 12.7 million people were projected to be food insecure across the country in 2024, with a further 2.6 million “at risk of falling into hunger”. The agency predicts a 29% increase in the number of severely food insecure people living in camps for internally displaced people in the country in 2024, as compared to this year.   Suhaib Abdou, 40, lives with his family of 14 in a camp for displaced people in Kafr Aruq, in the northern countryside of rebel-held Idlib province. Home for his wife, five sons, and seven daughters is a well-worn tent, six metres long and four metres wide, in which they have sectioned off a kitchen, a sitting room, and a space for sleeping.   The camp where they live is home to 295 families in total, and there are only 11 shared restroom blocks, or one block for every 27 families. Hunger and humanitarian needs have been rising for years in the rebel-held northwest, which is home to 4.5 million people; 2.9 million have been displaced at least once. The last few months have seen an increase in bombings by the Syrian government and its Russian allies, forcing even more people to flee their homes.   Abdou began receiving food aid after he had to flee his own home in the city of Saraqib in late 2019. His family currently receives one food basket from WFP every 60 days, down from once every 30 days in the past. He said the contents of the basket were reduced in the spring.   “We’re having one meal a day,” Abdou said. “When he can, my brother living abroad sends me some money to buy food for my kids.”   Without the extra cash, the family struggles to get enough to eat.   “If my brother doesn’t send me money, I’m not able to provide food for my kids,” he said. “There are kids who go to the trash containers to get food when their share is out, and they sometimes collect scraps to sell it so they can buy bread.”   Abdou said his family doesn’t eat fruit, vegetables, or meat because they can’t afford them. “If the amount is decreased again, you won’t find a camp that will agree to receive the aid as it’s not enough for anything,” he added.   Abdou spoke to The New Humanitarian before the WFP’s early December announcement that, starting in January 2024, it would be stopping its general food assistance programme in Syria altogether.   The WFP spokesperson said that low funding forced WFP to reduce the number of people who receive general food assistance from 5.5 to 3.2 million in July. That lower number “will no longer receive general food assistance from January 2024 onwards”, according to the spokesperson.   The total number of people who will still receive some sort of WFP aid in Syria is not clear, as some programmes – including those for earthquake survivors – will likely be ongoing. And general food aid could be restarted if new funding comes in but, for now, the spokesperson said that “discontinuation of general food assistance amid this situation is expected to have serious consequences on people who need it the most”.   Latin America and the Caribbean   Between 2021 and 2022, the prevalence of hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean fell from 7% to 6.5% of the region’s population – or some 43.2 million people. But this bird’s-eye view masks a dramatic rise in hunger in the Caribbean and fails to capture that in some countries, such as Ecuador, overall hunger rates plateaued while the percentage of people slipping from moderately to severely food insecure increased.   In 2023, WFP only received funding to finance 37% of identified needs, reducing mostly its emergency response activities. Cuts have already affected four countries: Haiti, Ecuador, Honduras, and Colombia.   In Colombia, WFP’s funding has dropped by 30% to 40% this year, and in Ecuador by 50% for emergency response. Programmes targeting pregnant and lactating women and children under two in Ecuador have been suspended, while rations were reduced for others, and the duration of time the aid was provided for fell as well. In Honduras, WFP reached only about 50% of the targeted population. Among those who received assistance, 95% were children benefiting from school meals. Funding for other operations is extremely scarce.   In Haiti, where soaring gang violence has been both driving up needs and hampering aid work, funds for emergency response were almost exhausted by September, and operations in the country have only received 10% of the funding needed. Some 4.9 million people in Haiti – over 40% of the population – now face severe hunger. In July, WFP had to cut 100,000 people – 25% of emergency food assistance recipients – from its rolls due to dwindling funds. A total of 750,000 people who are in need of assistance have fallen through the cracks because of this lack of resources.   “It’s a very bad time to have to reduce the coverage of emergency programmes,” Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP country director in Haiti, told The New Humanitarian.   The New Humanitarian interviewed residents of the Saint-Aude Camp, a cramped settlement for internally displaced people in the heart of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where 115 people, including about 30 children, live in tiny, sweltering houses.   Although the camp was established after the 2010 earthquake, it is now receiving people fleeing gang violence in other parts of the capital.   Nickencia Sidney, a 23-year-old single mother, fled the Carrefour-Feuilles district of Port-au-Prince for the Saint-Aude Camp after gangs set her house on fire last July. Her two-year-old daughter, Naella Jean-Louis, is staying with friends while Sidney tries to find more permanent housing, and a reliable food source.   “It may happen that I eat once a day. It may happen that I don’t eat anything; I just stay like that,” Sidney told The New Humanitarian. “Sometimes, I have weakness and dizziness. When I stand up after sitting, I black out. When I’m out on the streets, my eyes hurt with the glare of the sun. Sometimes, I take to the streets, and I cannot walk because I feel so weak.”   In mid-September, by reprioritising funding, the WFP managed to finance 49,000 hot meals at 19 sites around the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area for seven days. People in Saint-Aude received one hot meal per day for a week. But Haitians who are living in camps often prefer to receive raw food because it lasts longer and gives them more flexibility to consume it or trade it for other items they need.   “I am very worried,” said Bauer, the WFP country director. “When there is an earthquake, you rebuild the country; when there is drought, you tell yourself that there will be an agricultural campaign and harvesting the year after. But now, we don't see the end of the problem.”   The ongoing El Nino climate pattern – which typically brings more extreme weather, including more severe storms and rainfall in some places and drought in others – is expected to exacerbate food insecurity around the world, including in Ecuador, which is also facing a surge in gang violence.   Hunger levels in the country have not yet risen, but the number of people who are severely food insecure rose from 6% to 7.5% in 2022, according to Crescenzo Rubinetti, head of WFP’s emergency preparedness and response team in the country.   “We are trying to prepare for [El Niño],” said Rubinetti. “​​But we had at the beginning of 2023 a high impact from heavy rain, with 100,000 people affected... There is no capacity in the country to respond to this kind of crisis.”   In Honduras, WFP estimates that about 2.8 million people are exposed to the climate crisis, but if donors do not pledge more funding, they won't receive any food assistance in case of emergency.   Meanwhile, in Colombia, WFP expects those affected by El Niño to reach 1.5 to 3.5 million. “When we look at what has been foreseen for El Nino, there is a serious concern,” said Carlo Scaramella, the WFP country director there. “At WFP, at the moment, we do not have the capacity to respond to these needs.”   WFP Colombia expects funding cuts to be less dramatic in 2024 but is still anticipating a 15% reduction across all its programmes. At the regional level, however, WFP expects funding shortages for emergency response to increase and cuts to affect additional countries from the dry corridor of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.   (Ali M. Latifi reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Harold Isaac reported from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Abd Almajed Alkarh reported from Idlib, Syria. Sophie Neiman reported from Kampala, Uganda. Patricia Huon reported from Adré, Chad. Additional reporting from Philip Kleinfeld, Paisley Dodds, and Annie Slemrod in London, UK; Daniela Mohor in Santiago, Chile; and Kristof Titeca in Antwerp, Belgium. The interactive map was produced by Marc Fehr, Sofia Kuan, and Namukabo Werungah. Edited by Tom Brady, Eric Reidy, and Andrew Gully).   http://www.wfp.org/stories/2023-pictures-ration-cuts-threaten-catastrophe-millions-facing-hunger http://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2023/12/13/wfp-aid-food-cuts-mean-people-hunger-crisis-around-world http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/en/ http://reliefweb.int/report/burkina-faso/hunger-hotspots-fao-wfp-early-warnings-acute-food-insecurity-november-2023-april-2024-outlook Visit the related web page
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