ReliefWeb

Highlights

• A campaign for mass distribution of mosquito nets has been launched. WFP will ensure the distribution of 7 million mosquito nets to 10 million people in 13 regions of Chad in the framework of UNDP’s programme to prevent malaria, the first cause of death in the country. WFP leverages its field presence and logistical expertise to dispatch the nets to 4,000 sites through 900 health centres.

• Cash-based assistance is suspended for 62,000 returnees from Central African Republic and will only resume during the lean season to prioritize the use of limited resources during that critical time of the year. WFP urgently requires USD 10 million to enable prepositioning of food and nutritious products in Eastern Chad before the rainy season, which cuts off access routes – otherwise, half rations will not be ensured for 330,00 Sudanese refugees from June to October.

Operational Updates

Country-wide:

Preliminary results of a national market assessment by the Government, WFP and other partners show that the current food prices are relatively low. This situation is driven by the low demand from households due to their insufficient purchasing power and to the fact that households are currently consuming their own production during this postharvest season. However, a deterioration is expected during the lean season when demand increases thus putting pressure on prices, particularly in the regions of the Sahel belt with low agricultural production. The current economic crisis affects traders' resources and this situation, combined with the structurally poor road infrastructure making it unlikely for inter-regional transfers from surplus regions towards deficit regions to be sufficient. Border closures with Nigeria and C.A.R. continue to disrupt livestock trade and to negatively affect the purchasing power of pastoral and agropastoral households. Finally, the border closure with Libya in January 2017 led to an increase of food prices in Kanem, a region through which trade flows used to transit.
A Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions (SMART) survey conducted in January indicates that in Sudanese refugee camps, the global acute malnutrition prevalence has overall increased between 2015 and 2016, from 7.4 percent to 9.2 percent. This increase comes after several consecutive years of steady improvement. Partners need to be on alert, analyse the determinants of these changes and monitor admissions in nutrition centres. In camps hosting refugees from C.A.R., no significant changes were noted and prevalence is at 6.3 percent on average, under the 10 percent threshold alert.