The number of people without regular access to safe and nutritious food is expected to reach 48 million during the June-August lean season, according to a regional food security analysis presented by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), humanitarian agency OCHA, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and children's agency UNICEF.

This is driven in part by the plight of countries in the semi-arid Sahel region south of the Sahara desert, including Mali and Burkina Faso, which are fighting an Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced some 2.5 million.

A record 45,000 people in the Sahel are expected to face a catastrophic famine, a level just below hunger, according to the agencies.

The fighting has cut off food supply routes in parts of the Sahel and other flashpoints around Lake Chad and in the Central African Republic, said Alexandre Lecuziat, WFP's senior emergency preparedness and response consultant. "We see areas completely blocked," he told a joint news conference in Dakar, explaining how the high cost of renting helicopters to reach these zones depletes the funds available for the purchase of food.

Overall, WFP faces a $900 million deficit this year in the region, he said. The predicted food shortages mean that about 16.5 million children under the age of five face acute malnutrition this year, according to the analysis.

The region's dependence on imports has made it vulnerable to high global inflation rates, although many parts of West Africa saw better rainfall in 2022 and an increase in cereal production.

Source: Agrolink