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Djibouti + 3 more

WFP Djibouti Country Brief, August 2022

Attachments

In Numbers

466.6 mt of food distributed

USD 243,165 cash-based transfers made

USD 5.4 m six months (Sept. 2022 – Feb. 2023) net funding requirements

66,100 people assisted in August 2022

Operational Updates

• In August, WFP provided food and nutrition assistance to 66,100 people, including refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and vulnerable households in rural and urban areas, through unconditional in-kind food distributions and cash-based transfers (CBT).

Drought Response:

• As of July, approximated 194, 00 people are facing food insecurity in Djibouti – an increase of 56 percent since February. This is due to the ongoing drought, high food prices, and socioeconomic challenges. In addition, more than 5,000 children under the age of 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding women are facing, or are at risk of, malnutrition.
Under the drought response, WFP assisted 8,082 beneficiaries in August through in-kind food distributions in the regions of Tadjourah, Arta, and Ali Sabieh.

Assistance to refugees and asylum seekers:

• WFP provided food and nutrition assistance to 20,338 refugees in all three refugee settlements in Djibouti.

• WFP provided food and nutrition assistance to 400 migrants in the Migration Response Centre (MRC) in the Obock region in Djibouti.

• A total of 264 people, with at least one family member living with HIV, received food assistance through monthly vouchers valued at DJF 10,000 (USD 56).

COVID-19 response:

• WFP, in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Solidarities (MASS), provided food assistance to vulnerable people affected by the impact of COVID 19 through vouchers to: o 9,000 beneficiaries in Djibouti City o 2,160 beneficiaries in other cities o 13,200 beneficiaries in rural areas

Social protection:

• WFP in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Solidarities (MASS) support the social protection through the strengthening of national social registry. To improve the food security of vulnerable groups, WFP assisted 12,500 beneficiaries in rural areas through the Seasonal General Food Distribution.

Forecast-based Financing:

• WFP organized training for the National Meteorological Agency of Djibouti (ANMD) focused on the next generations of weather forecast tools to enable the establishment of more relevant weather forecasting and put in place anticipatory actions. This training was led by six scientists from IGAD'S Climate Prediction and Applications Centre.

Food assistance for assets:

• WFP in partnership with FAO is supporting participants to optimize agricultural perimeters to address the immediate food needs of most food-insecure people's while improving their long-term food security and resilience. A total of 156 participants from the five regions of Tadjourah, Arta, Dikhil, Obock and Ali Sabieh are working to improve agricultural production and received cash-based transfers from WFP.

Capacity Strengthening:

• WFP and USAID visited a warehouse school which was provided with the necessary equipment for training in logistics and transport.
Thanks to these purchases, the warehouse is now brought up to standard and will make it possible to provide high-level practical training to young participants.

Monitoring:

• WFP carried out the process monitoring after a few months of the implementation of the seasonal General Food Distribution, COVID response and Refugee assistance to measure and analyze process performance.

• Market price: there is a rise in prices, over the last three successive months. The inflation rate in Djibouti remained at 2 digits (11 percent).
This greatly weakens the food security of vulnerable households, particularly those who have been displaced due to drought, as well as host communities, but also pastoralists who have lost all their sources of income. These populations are forced to restrict their food consumption to a single staple food.

Port operations and Overload Transport

• In August, for the first time in WFP Djibouti history, two batches (15,762 mt) of fertilizers have been dispatched to Mekele and woredas in Tigray. The port team also drop-shipped 125 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) through Cost and Freight, moved 630 mt of vegetable oil from USAID released preposition; and 54,542 mt of wheat over about 90,000 mt of bulk wheat grain received for Ethiopia.

• With the re-opening of the Black Sea, MV Brave Commander with 23,299 mt of bulk wheat, berthed in Djibouti on 30 August. As the first WFP-chartered ship to leave Ukraine since the conflict unfolded, international and local media featured the event. On the following day, 87 trucks/ 3480 mt of the wheat were heading to Ethiopia.