Emergency
Democratic Republic of the Congo emergency
- 27 million
- people are acutely food insecure
- 5.5 million
- people are internally displaced
- US$ 99 million
- net funding requirement until April 2022
Conflict and hunger fuel one another in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Insecurity spread across several provinces is the main driver to population displacements, which often leads to hunger. Food insecurity continues to grow in DRC with 27 million people acutely food insecure. An estimated 3.4 million children are acutely malnourished. DRC is one of the largest hunger crisis in the world and is a corporate emergency for WFP.
In addition to addressing this hunger crisis, WFP has supported the Government of DRC in fighting recent Ebola Virus Disease outbreaks, that have claimed thousands of lives in recent years in the northern part of the country. The latest (12th) Ebola outbreak was declared over in May 2021.
What the World Food Programme is doing to respond to the DRC emergency
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Ebola
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WFP helps reduce the propagation of the Ebola virus by providing food to patients and potentially affected people. It also provides crucial logistical services including trucks and planes, which enable responders to reach new or remote outbreak areas quickly. WFP also launched school feeding and nutrition programmes to address populations’ needs more holistically and to build trust and positive engagement with them.
Food assistance is the only non-medical assistance provided to Ebola contacts during their medical observation period, and provides a key incentive in preventing movement of potentially affected people. -
Emergency response
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In October 2017, WFP activated a Level 3 emergency, covering the six most populous and conflict affected provinces – North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, Kasai, Kasai Central and Tanganyika. A significant scale-up of WFP activities was required to reverse the deepening hunger crisis in DRC. WFP’s strengthened field operations yielded substantial results by reaching 6.9 million in 2020. WFP aims to assist 8.7 million people in 2021.