This year’s lean season will put more than 41 million people at danger, and the level of food insecurity in West and Central Africa is worrying.
This is in accordance with the World Bank, which also estimates that 29 million people are currently relying on emergency food help in a recent report released on April 12.
The financial institution attributed the high rate of malnutrition in the area to the area’s instability and violence, extreme levels of poverty, the speeding up of climate change, low agricultural output, and environmental degradation.
To address this, the world bank on its part says it has adopted a regional approach to building food system resilience notably by reallocating funds from ongoing operations, triggering the Emergency Response Component (ERC), mobilising emergency response funds from the International Development Association’s (IDA) Special Crisis Response Financing Window (CRW ERF), and working with humanitarian actors to monitor food insecurity and design Food Security Preparedness Plans.
The $766 million West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP) is expected to benefit over four million people across the region. It aims to increase agricultural productivity through the adoption of climate-smart technologies, promote inter-regional value chains, and develop agricultural risk management capacity within the region.
