Attachments
CONTEXT
• Recurrent natural hazards—including extreme high temperatures, pest infestations, and prolonged dry spells—continue to compound underlying socioeconomic challenges in Zambia, resulting in heightened humanitarian needs, according to an October Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis. An estimated 60 percent of Zambia’s population live in rural areas and rely on subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods, increasing households’ vulnerability to climatic shocks, the UN reports.
• Zambia experienced the country’s worst drought in approximately 40 years during the 2023/2024 rainfall season, with dry conditions decimating crops, deteriorating pasture for livestock, and threatening the availability of water, the UN reports. Elevated prices due to currency depreciation, high agricultural input costs, and low agricultural production have also reduced household purchasing power, further restricting food access across Zambia. As a result, an estimated 5.8 million people are projected to experience Crisis—IPC 3—or worse levels of acute food insecurity between October 2024 and March 2025, representing a more than 200 percent increase compared to 1.9 million people during the same period the previous year, according to an IPC analysis.
• More than 88,000 asylum-seekers and refugees fleeing violence and instability in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Somalia were sheltering in refugee settlements and urban areas throughout Zambia as of September 30, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Of this total, approximately 9,000 asylum-seekers and refugees were sheltering in the Mantapala Refugee Settlement in Luapula Province, where households mainly rely on external assistance to meet basic food and nutrition needs, the Government of the Republic of Zambia and the UN World Food Program (WFP) report. Displaced persons in rural settlements require food assistance, health care, and livelihood support, among other essential services.