Geneva — A senior researcher for the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) says West Africa is experiencing a severe food and nutrition crisis, and insufficient funding is worsening the situation.
Ollo Sib, a WFP senior regional research advisor, addressed a UN press conference in Geneva on May 9 from Dakar, saying that 36 million people in West and Central Africa struggle to meet their basic food needs.
“According to the latest food security analysis of the Cadre Harmonise, more than 36 million people are struggling to meet their basic food needs, a number projected to rise to over 52 million during the June–August 2025 lean season,” said Sib.
That included almost three million in emergency conditions and 2,600 people in Mali at risk of facing catastrophic hunger,
“Unyielding conflict has forcibly displaced more than 10 million of the most vulnerable across the region, including 2.4 million refugees and asylum seekers, in Chad, Cameroon, Mauritania, and Niger,” said the UN advisor.
“Almost eight million more have been internally displaced, mainly in Nigeria and Cameroon.”
He said many affected people have lost their primary sources of sustenance, fleeing farms and grazing lands in search of food and shelter.
Food inflation, exacerbated by rising food and fuel costs, pushes crisis hunger levels to new highs in Ghana, Guinea, and Côte d’Ivoire.
Additionally, food prices continue to rise in Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, too, placing nutritious food far out of reach for the most vulnerable.
“In Northern Mali, I met a herder who had been forced to sell his livestock to buy food for his family,” said Sib.
He said that in the northern part of Côte d’Ivoire, the price of each kilogram of cashew nuts plummeted, while the cost of basic staples like rice soared.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
He said recurrent extreme weather erodes families’ ability to feed themselves, particularly in the Central Sahel, Lake Chad Basin, and the Central African Republic.
Sib explained that in 2024 alone, floods and droughts affected over six million people across the region.
The UN advisor said that in the Sahel and northern Nigeria, communities like Jere, Mafa, and Konduga in Borno had twice the normal rainfall, which left fields flooded, crops destroyed, and livestock lost.
“While humanitarian needs in West and Central Africa are soaring, our resources to mount an effective response at scale are not keeping pace,” said Sib.
The WFP aims to reach almost 12 million people in West Africa and the Sahel with critical assistance and nutritional support this year to help the most vulnerable withstand hunger shocks when they inevitably occur.
To fulfil this, the UN agency urgently requires $710 million to continue life-saving assistance for the region’s most vulnerable for the next six months (May–October 2025).
