Attachments
Operational Context
Forty percent of Cameroon’s 23.7 million people live below the poverty line and human development indicators remain low. Poverty has a strong regional dimension concentrated in the Far North, North, Adamaoua and East regions.
In Cameroon’s northern regions situated in the Sahelian band, communities are the most deprived as a result of years of successive natural disasters and below average harvests with little means to resist the continuous cycle of shocks and stresses.
The number of people facing food insecurity in Cameroon is estimated at 3.9 million, including 211,000 severely food insecure. The four priority regions of Far North, North, Adamaoua and East totalled 2.5 million of food-insecure people (CFSVA 2017). This figure represents 36.7 percent of the total population of these regions.
Stunting is a major public health issue in the northern Cameroon, with levels reaching 40.9 percent in the Far North region, and 38.4 percent in the East region (SMART survey 2017).
The global acute malnutrition (GAM) in the four regions is around 5 percent of precariousness threshold (Far North 4.5 percent, North 6.5 percent, Adamaoua 4.5 percent and East 4.8 percent). Far North region accounts for 75 percent of the lategrowth children in the four regions surveyed.
Operational Updates
- The food ration distributed to C.A.R. refugees in the East, Adamaoua and North regions was increased from 50 percent in January to 75 percent in February. Hence, 427.2 mt of various food commodities, representing 75 percent of food ration, was distributed to 35,200 refugees while 39,654 beneficiaries received the equivalent of 75 percent of ration in cash.
- Some 32,000 children aged 6-59 months were reached with malnutrition prevention activities through the Blanket Supplementary Feeding Platform (BSFP). The BSFP sites were used as health posts for the national vaccination campaigns (SASNIM) conducted from the 2-4 March, ensuring targeted children and women are reached. The capacity of cooperating partners and community health workers was strengthened before the launch of nutrition activities.
- In the Far North, 100 percent ration of food (inkind) was distributed to 49,895 Nigerian refugees in the Minawao Camp. Following a request from administrative authorities, 1,700 vulnerable displaced people in the Zamai sites were assisted in emergency with a complete food ration of 30 days (2,100 kcal per person per day).
- School meals using 203 mt of food were distributed to 76,000 children (56.7 percent of girls and 43.3 percent of boys) from 134 schools in the Logone and Chari, Mayo Sava, and Mayo Tsanaga divisions in Far North region.
- The 3rd African Day of School Feeding was celebrated in the public school of Seradoumda in the Mayo Sava department, one of the school beneficiaries of WFP school meals programme.