Attachments
SITUATION
• As of August, about 290,000 Central African refugees sheltered in Cameroon, largely in Cameroon’s Adamaoua and East regions. Additionally, the insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin had driven 106,000 Nigerian refugees into Far North Region, where 263,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) also resided, the UN reports.
• Approximately 531,000 Cameroonians were also internally displaced in western Cameroon—mainly within the conflict-affected Northwest and Southwest regions—as of July, according to the UN.
• Nearly 1.1 million people in Cameroon faced Crisis (Phase 3) or worse levels of acute food insecurity and required urgent food assistance between June and August, according to the most recent Cadre Harmonisé (CH) report.*
• Although overall crop yields during the main October-to-January harvest in Far North will likely be above-average, production in conflict-affected areas will remain below-average as insecurity prevents farmers from accessing their fields. Persistent armed group attacks also often result in the theft and destruction of household goods and livestock, undermining some families’ livelihoods and access to food. As a result, Stressed (IPC 2) levels of acute food insecurity will persist in Far North through early 2020, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) reports. Meanwhile, IDPs and poor households in Northwest and Southwest will likely face Crisis (IPC 3) food security outcomes through January due to conflict-related restrictions on livelihoods, movements, and relief activities.
RESPONSE
• USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (FFP) partners with the UN World Food Program (WFP) to provide cash-based transfers and in-kind emergency food assistance to vulnerable IDPs, host community members, and refugees residing in Adamaoua, East, and Far North. FFP also collaborates with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to assist food-insecure people in Adamaoua and Far North through cash transfers for food and complementary activities that strengthen agricultural production and other income-generating activities.
• To assist conflict-affected populations in western Cameroon, FFP enables WFP to distribute in-kind food rations to IDPs and host community members in Northwest and Southwest. FFP also jointly supports an NGO with USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance to provide emergency food vouchers and essential relief commodities to vulnerable people in Northwest.