West Africa Faces Severe Food Security Crisis, WFP Warns

Faizan Hashmi Published March 07, 2025 | 04:30 PM

GENEVA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 07th Mar, 2025) The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that life-saving food and nutrition assistance in Central Sahel and Nigeria will halt in April 2025 without urgent funding.

This warning comes as the lean season - the period between harvests when hunger peaks - is anticipated to arrive earlier than usual this year across the Sahel region. Millions, including refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), still rely on WFP’s food assistance for survival.

In April 2025, funding shortfalls will force WFP to suspend food and nutrition assistance for 2 million crisis-affected people, including refugees, internally displaced persons, and vulnerable food-insecure families.

In a statement on Friday, the UN food agency urgently requires US$620 million to ensure continued support to crisis-affected people across the Sahel and in Nigeria over the next six months.

“The global shrinkage of foreign aid is posing a significant threat to our operations in Western Africa, especially in Central Sahel and Nigeria,” said Margot van der Velden, WFP’s Regional Director for Western Africa.

“Inaction will have severe consequences for the region and beyond, as food security is national security,” van der Velden warned.

The latest Cadre Harmonisé regional food security analysis, released in December 2024, showed that Western Africa is in the grips of an acute food security and nutrition crisis. An estimated 52.7 million women, men, and children are projected to experience acute hunger between June and August 2025. This includes 3.4 million in emergency food insecurity (IPC-Phase 4) across the Sahel region and 2,600 in catastrophic hunger (IPC-Phase 5) in northern Mali.

The hunger crisis in West Africa is driven by conflict, displacement, economic crises, and severe climate shocks, with devastating floods in 2024 affecting over six million people across the region.