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The Costs of Inaction and the implications on WFP food assistance in Sudan
In Sudan, food insecurity as classified according to the WFP CFSVA has increased in the last 2 years from 9.8 million people in 2021 to 15.8 million in 2022. To respond to this crisis WFP has scaled up its assistance to food insecure populations from approximately 8.9 million assisted beneficiaries in 2020 to 9.3 million in 2022.
However, the sheer scale and speed in the deterioration of food security has resulted in an increasing gap between needs and the resources available to WFP to intervene and there have been significant funding shortfalls. In addition to this the macroeconomic shocks in the region such as high food prices and inflation have also increased WFP’s operational costs putting extra stress on the already-stretched capacity of WFP to respond.
WFP has therefore been forced to modify its responses due to funding gaps in the following ways: 1) It reduced the number of people it could reach and 6.5 million food insecure people were not assisted 2)
WFP reduced the duration of assistance 3) implemented ration cuts. This means that for many people reached by WFP the duration or size of their assistance is below minimum daily requirements. These “inactions” have had repercussions on the food security of people already in need.
This first Cost of Inaction country brief aims to quantify the impacts of the World Food Programme’s funding shortfalls in Sudan in 2021 and 2022. It also looks at the potential impacts on food insecure populations and WFP future operations. This is not to ignore the fact that there are various key humanitarian actors in the region, starting with governments.
The analysis uses Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) data so in this study the food insecure numbers equate to populations in Sudan classified as acutely food insecure (equivalent to IPC 3 and 4).
Lastly this novel study will now acts as a baseline for further RAM work on the implications of inaction on food security levels at the household level and this work has begun in partnership with the University of California, Davis.
KEY FINDINGS
• This cost of inaction in Sudan in 2022 translates into 6.5 million Acutely food insecure (people NOT receiving any assistance. By December 2022 an estimated 41 percent of the acutely food insecure in Sudan received no assistance from WFP.
• WFP Sudan only received 27 percent of its requested funding forcing WFP to resort to different strategies (e.g. ration cuts, prioritization).
• WFP needed to spend 0.71 cents per person per day in 2022 but could only spend 0.42 cents.
This meant that for those people assisted, WFP was able to provide, on average, 59% of the minimum daily kilocalories needed. The long-term implications of this particularly on women, children and the elderly will be dire.
• If the above gaps persist, there will, over time, be an increase in both the numbers of hungry as well as an increase in the severity of hunger, which will see an increasing percentage of the population moving into worse IPC phases. This in turn will necessitate an increase in resources required by WFP and its partners to combat hunger.