World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Cameroon is a low-income, food deficit country (LIFDC). It has 16 million inhabitants, with an annual demographic growth rate of 2.8 percent. Cameroon is ranked 144th out of 177 countries in the 2007 Human Development Report. 40.2 percent of its 16 million people live below the poverty line of one US dollar per day of which 52.1 percent are in rural areas.

The northern part of the country which is located in the Sahelian and Sudano-Sahelian agro-ecological zones has suffered from food crises over the last three decades as a result of natural and man-made disasters and the growing impoverishment of the rural population.

A comprehensive food security and vulnerability analysis conducted in 2007 found that poor agricultural production, low education and income levels, and inadequate infrastructure are responsible for vulnerability and food insecurity in the northern provinces of Cameroon.