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Burundi: Annual Country Report 2022 - Country Strategic Plan 2022 - 2024

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Overview

On 1 March 2022, WFP launched its new 2022-2024 Interim Country Strategic Plan (ICSP) aligned to the priorities of the Government National Development Plan (2018-2027). Covering WFP’s dual mandate of ‘Saving lives, changing lives’, the ICSP is composed of five interlinked strategic outcomes focusing on crisis response and resilience-building, aiming to assist 2,291,750 direct beneficiaries in the country for the ICSP period.

Through a focused engagement and the nurturing of existing partnerships with humanitarian and development donors, WFP managed to secure USD 102 million in 2022, representing a 107 percent funding level, that allowed to deliver assistance to 995,651 beneficiaries. Funding levels varied for different activities in respect of the donor restrictions applied to contributions earmarked mainly at activity and geographical levels.

WFP acted as a national champion of a sustainable food systems approach, delivering support and capacity-strengthening to national partners, stakeholders, and key actors. WFP sustainable food systems approach encompassed the whole food value chain, starting from the production by local smallholder farmers, through the transformation and fortification by local milling units, and the consumption of nutritious school meals by the children enrolled in the national school-feeding programme.

The technical and financial support brought to the food transformation and fortification sector was the result of WFP’s strategic engagement with the private sector and non-traditional donors, aimed at re-enforcing the sector’s national capacities and processes.

This innovative food systems approach, hailed by the Government for its benefits to the development of the agricultural sector and the prevention of malnutrition, will constitute one of the key pillars of the upcoming United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2024-2027, with WFP acting as lead UN agency.

To ensure an efficient implementation and monitoring of its crisis-response and resilience-building activities, WFP invested into the digitalization of its services. This included the development of the SCOPE, school-connect registration platforms, and the increased use of the cash-based transfer modality.

Through an adjustment into hybrid rations composed of in-kind and cash, WFP managed to avert food ration cuts to groups of people affected by various shocks that hit Burundi in 2022. WFP distributed emergency food assistance to refugees, returnees, internally displaced people, and highly food-insecure local population. In addition to the lingering effect of the COVID-19 containment measures, in 2022, Burundi was affected by multiple and recurrent climatic hazards, epidemic outbreaks such as the Rift Valley fever and cholera, and the inflationary effects of the global food crisis on the price of basic food commodities and fuel.

These external shocks, compounded by structural factors such as low agricultural productivity, low quality of education and gender inequality, prevent the socio-economic growth of vulnerable population. For a country which holds worldwide records of poverty, chronic food insecurity and malnutrition rates, the combined external shocks result into an alarming humanitarian situation. This unprecedented context limited progress towards the attainment of the targeted SDGs.

Amidst this crisis, WFP upheld its role of the world’s largest humanitarian organization by operating key logistical on-demand services for other UN agencies and development partners in the country, including the provision of fuel and the transport of mosquito nets on behalf of UNDP in a project funded by the Global Fund.

The challenges awaiting WFP in 2023 are numerous, starting with the scarcity of resources. Although the number of people needing essential food and nutritional assistance is projected to increase, WFP and other humanitarian partners in Burundi are witnessing donor fatigue towards the silent humanitarian crisis that keeps unfolding in the country. The fatigue is reflected by a progressive reduction in funding for some operations. To ensure the programming and humanitarian assistance is not grossly affected, WFP will make efforts to broaden it donor base.

On resilience-building food systems activities, WFP will capitalize on the capacity-strengthening projects implemented with the agriculture and food sectors in 2022 and will pursue its partnership with the Burundi First Lady to advocate for the expansion of the national school feeding programme. WFP will pursue its consultation and concertation role with international financial organizations, aimed to establish a registry and social protection policy in the country. Using its international expertise and network, WFP will facilitate South-South knowledge cooperation and exchange study visits between key governmental stakeholders and decision-makers.