Background
The Central Sahel has been plagued by a humanitarian crisis for close to a decade with needs that have drastically increased in the last three years in correlation with protracted conflict, massive population displacement, climate change, and socio-political instability. In addition to this, the Ukraine crisis has led to high general price inflation and high food prices, while the residual effects of the restriction’s measures against the COVID19 are still being felt.
Most of the underlying drivers of the current humanitarian crisis are likely to aggravate further in 2023, and will worsen the hunger crisis in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
Yet the humanitarian response in the Central Sahel remains largely insufficient, with lack of funding, problems of access, and weak coordination. Early recovery and resilience responses are the least funded, failing to stem the accelerating deterioration of the hunger crisis and turning back the clock on overall human development and human rights gains made over the past decade, including in girls’ rights and gender equality.