The United Nations World Food Programme has issued a stark warning that West and Central Africa are on the brink of an unprecedented hunger crisis, driven by a convergence of conflict, displacement, economic instability, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events.
According to the latest assessments, at least 36 million people across the region are currently struggling to access enough food to meet their basic needs. That figure is expected to surge to more than 52 million during the upcoming lean season, which spans from June to August.
Among those affected, nearly three million are facing emergency levels of food insecurity, while 2,600 individuals in Mali are teetering on the edge of famine, facing conditions classified as catastrophic hunger.
Despite the escalating needs, humanitarian resources remain critically limited, placing millions of lives in grave jeopardy.
“Without immediate funding, WFP will be forced to scale down even further both in the number of people reached and the size of food rations distributed,” Margot van der Velden, Regional Director for West and Central Africa, said.
In 2019, only four per cent of the population was food insecure compared to 30 per cent today, according to Ollo Sib, a senior research adviser with WFP.
“We hope that our voice will be heard because this food security situation in the Sahel remains extremely difficult and dire,” he said, speaking from Dakar to journalists in Geneva on Friday.
Sib recently travelled to some of the affected areas, such as communities in northern Ghana grappling with unprecedented drought.
“They were forced to replant two to three times, and for them, each failed sowing is an additional financial burden as the cost of fertilisers and seeds were extremely high in those locations,” he said.
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The assessment team also went to northern Mali, which is the only place in the region where people are facing catastrophic food security conditions.
“We had the opportunity to interact with pastoralist elders who typically sell their livestock to buy cereals,” he said.
“This year they were worried because the cost of food rose by 50 per cent compared to the five-year average. But at the same time, they are not able to access markets to sell their goods.”
The World Food Programme (WFP) has identified relentless conflict as a key driver behind the worsening hunger crisis in West and Central Africa.
Ongoing violence has forced more than 10 million of the region’s most vulnerable individuals from their homes, contributing significantly to food insecurity. Among them are over two million refugees and asylum seekers who have sought safety in countries such as Chad, Cameroon, Mauritania, and Niger—many of which are already grappling with limited resources and fragile infrastructure.
This widespread displacement continues to strain local communities and humanitarian operations, further compounding the region’s growing hunger emergency.