African food crises

 Conflict Remains the Dominant Driver of Africa’s Food Crisis (africacenter.org)

Highlights of the report

• An estimated 149 million Africans are facing acute food insecurity—an increase of 12 million people from a year ago. This equates to a risk category of 3 or higher (Crisis, Emergency, and Catastrophe) on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) scale of 1 to 5.
• Some 122 million of those facing acute food insecurity are in countries experiencing conflict—82 percent of the total—accentuating that conflict is the primary driver of acute food insecurity in Africa.
• 8 of the top 10 African countries experiencing acute food insecurity are facing conflict.
• The 149-million-person figure represents a 150-percent increase in the number of Africans facing acute food insecurity since 2019 when 61 million people were in this category.
• This highlights the compounding humanitarian effects of Africa’s unresolved conflicts.
• While 38 African countries are experiencing some level of acute food insecurity, roughly two-thirds of this threat is concentrated in five countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, and South Sudan—all of which are conflict-affected.
• Nearly all of the continental increase in acute food insecurity in the past year was a result of the eruption of conflict in Sudan and a deterioration of security in northern Nigeria.
• Four of the top 10 countries facing the most acute food insecurity are in East Africa—Sudan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Somalia.
• 19 African countries have at least 10 percent of their populations facing acute food insecurity.
• Conflict compounds the impacts of other external shocks like climate change, inflation, and the disruption to global grain supplies caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Moscow’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain deal that enabled 33 million MT of grain to reach global markets and lower food prices, especially in Africa, has further worsened the food outlook.
• Historically, El Niño climate patterns, which have now returned, have historically led to decreased precipitation in Southern Africa, Western Africa, Sudan, and Ethiopia.
• There have already been fatalities due to hunger reported this year in Ethiopia and Somalia. WFP has predicted that before year’s end, 129,000 people are expected to experience Catastrophe levels (IPC 5) of hunger in Burkina Faso, Mali, Somalia, and South Sudan. A rapid scale-up of assistance has averted even more people facing starvation.

This is the one where our church has a mission--South Sudan.  Technically, it is a Christian country, but Sudan, which is Muslim, is also having a war and food shortages.

South Sudan

In South Sudan, 7.8 million (71 percent of the population) faced Crisis and above levels of hunger this year. This number included 2.9 million people facing Emergency levels of hunger countrywide and 43,000 facing Catastrophe levels in the state of Jonglei.

The situation is being driven by rising levels of violence and insecurity  as well as “chronic vulnerabilities worsened by frequent climate-related shocks (severe flooding and dry spells), the macro-economic crisis, and low agricultural production.”

Since the outbreak of the Sudan conflict in April this year, almost 293,000 South Sudanese returnees and Sudanese refugees have entered South Sudan. This influx is exacerbating the already severe humanitarian situation in South Sudan, placing additional strain on limited humanitarian resources and escalating food and fuel prices.

Read the rest of the report for the other countries.