Attachments
SITUATION
• The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis projectsthat nearly 5.8 million people will experience Crisis (IPC 3) or worse levels of acute food insecurity, including more than 1 million people experiencing Emergency (IPC 4) conditions through March.
• The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) attributes increased food insecurity to worsening economic conditions including cash shortages, currency depreciation and high labor costs, despite near-average November-to-December 2018 main season harvests. FEWS NET projects the macroeconomic situation will continue to deteriorate through September 2019 due to increased prices for food and non-food items, restricting household purchasing power.
• Multiple years of conflict and insecurity in Darfur and the Two Areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, as well as droughts and floods, have created nearly 2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) across Sudan. It is expected that IDPs in opposition-controlled areas of South Kordofan and Jebel Marra will experience Emergency (IPC 4) conditions during the peak of the lean season from August–September.
• Approximately 2.8 million Sudanese children younger than five years of age are acutely malnourished, including 694,000 who suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM), according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
• In January, approximately 1,500 Ethiopians crossed the border into Sudan fleeing continued inter-communal violence in western Ethiopia, a quarter of whom are expected to seek asylum in Sudan. Additionally, Sudan hosts approximately 848,000 South Sudanese who have fled South Sudan due to ongoing instability and hunger since 2013.
RESPONSE
• USAID is the largest donor of emergency food assistance to Sudan. The USAID Office of Food for Peace (FFP) partners include the UN World Food Program (WFP) and UNICEF, which provide emergency assistance to the most vulnerable. Each year, FFP assistance supports more than 2.5 million food-insecure people.
• FFP and its partners work to save lives, reduce seasonal and chronic food insecurity, stabilize malnutrition rates and restore the livelihoods of vulnerable communities. FFP’s assistance includes in-kind food aid from the United States, locally and regionally purchased food assistance, food vouchers and cash transfers for food.
• FFP partner UNICEF provided nutrition assistance in the form of ready-to-use therapeutic food to more than 215,000 children younger than five years of age experiencing SAM in 2018.