Recurrent complex emergencies, chronic food insecurity and malnutrition, cyclical drought, seasonal floods, disease outbreaks, and limited government capacity present significant challenges to the vulnerable populations of the West and North Africa region. Between Fiscal Year (FY) 2002 and FY 2011, USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) and USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (USAID/FFP) provided humanitarian assistance in response to a diverse range of natural and manmade disasters, including complex emergencies in Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea; earthquakes in Morocco and Algeria; locust invasions, food insecurity, and malnutrition in the Sahel; floods throughout the region; meningitis, cholera, and measles outbreaks in multiple countries; and the global high food price crisis in 2009.

Between FY 2002 and FY 2011, USAID provided more than $1.2 billion in humanitarian assistance to West and North Africa, including more than $188 million from USAID/OFDA for agriculture and food security, economic recovery and market systems, health, humanitarian coordination and information management, logistics and relief commodities, nutrition, protection, shelter and settlements, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions and nearly $1.1 billion from USAID/FFP for emergency food assistance.

In the last decade, USAID deployed multiple humanitarian assessment teams to the region, as well as five Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs) for major responses, including the Morocco earthquake in 2004; locust invasions, food insecurity, and malnutrition in the Sahel in 2004 and 2005; and complex emergencies in Liberia in 2003 and Libya in 2011.