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Food Security trend in Cameroon
“I am living with 11 family members including my 3 children and my wife. Since we were forced to flee our village in 2018, it is difficult to get even white rice to eat, and with 11 people in our small house, it is unbearable", says Booba, a 37-year-old internally displaced man from Belo division in the Northwest region of Cameroon.
The past years have seen a deterioration of the humanitarian situation, putting further strain on an already stretched humanitarian system, especially with the impact of COVID-19 in 2020, as millions of businesses have had to shut down either temporarily or permanently. In this increasingly fragmented and polarized context, civilians pay the highest price. It is imperative to always protect civilians and ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches all people in need in a timely, safe, and effective manner.
In Cameroon, the continuous high levels of insecurity in the Northwest and Southwest regions, the persistence of NSAG incursions in the Far North, the rise in conflicts over natural resources (water, pastures, etc.), and floods (in the Far North, North and West) continue to have a severe impact on food security. According to the recent results of the Cadre Harmonisé (October 2023), 10.6% of people are facing acute food insecurity in Cameroon, which represents 2,940,807 persons. In addition, the Mid-Year Update for the 2023 Global Report against Food Crises, reveals that 22% and 10% of the population are respectively in phase 2 and 3 of acute food insecurity in 2023*. This represents a significant increase, given that in 2022 only 11% of the population was in phase 2, and 10% in 2021.
From June to August 2023, 2.36 million people were projected to face Crisis or Worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) conditions in Cameroon, reflecting 9% of the analyzed population. Not to mention that as of December 2023, the prevalence of crisis or above-crisis level foodbased coping strategies in Cameroon was 36,96%, while prevalence of insufficient food consumption, poor and borderline food consumption score in Cameroon, was 40.07%. As conflict and insecurity is a main driver of acute food insecurity, the situation is precarious in the Northwest and Southwest regions, plagued by a socio-political crisis, and in the Far North, North, Littoral, West and East regions, where internally displaced persons and refugees put a strain on household stocks, and on productive resources of host households.