EU’s €33 .3 MILLION CONTRIBUTION HELPS WFP REACH MILLIONS ACROSS WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA WITH LIFE SAVING ASSISTANCE

WFP’s response, spanning Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Nigeria, prioritized communities facing the most severe food insecurity, including those affected by conflict, natural disasters, and forced displacement.

The EU-funded response comes at a time of drastic reductions in humanitarian funding while a staggering 52 million people - nearly 12 percent of the region’s population - were projected to experience acute hunger during the June-August lean season.

Despite major access and logistical challenges in the region, WFP and its partners demonstrated operational agility and commitment, reaching 3.3 million people through a combination of cash-based transfers and in-kind food distributions, along with specialized nutrition support for children under-2 years. In Burkina Faso alone, more than 221,000 individuals - including 124,800 internally displaced people (IDPs) - received vital food assistance. This helped 86 percent of families avoid crisis coping strategies such as skipping meals, selling essentials belongings, or withdrawing children from school. As a result, 60 percent of families had acceptable food consumption scores, up from just 13 percent before WFP’s response in June 2025.

The EU funding was pivotal in Cameroon, where a targeted lean season response reached 58,700 people – 57 percent of them women - with cash transfers and 159 metric tons of food commodities. These cash-based transfers not only met urgent food needs but also stimulated local markets, reinforcing community resilience.

Across Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Nigeria, WFP’s rapid and flexible interventions provided immediate relief to refugees, returnees, host communities, and newly displaced people, often delivering food within 72 hours of displacement.

“The scale of hunger in West and Central Africa this year is unprecedented. Thanks to the unwavering support from the EU and partners, WFP was able to reach millions of people on the brink of starvation, delivering not just food, but hope and stability to communities in crisis,” said Margot van der Velden, WFP’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa.  “The EU’s commitment is a lifeline for the most vulnerable, and a cornerstone of our ability to respond rapidly and effectively in one of the world’s most challenging humanitarian environments.”

Food insecurity and malnutrition in West and Central Africa are primarily driven by conflict, population displacement, extreme weather, economic instability, and high food prices. These factors are eroding people’s ability to feed themselves. Forcibly displaced people in West and Central Africa are bearing the brunt of acute hunger, having been cut off from their farms and grazing lands. Over 11 million people are forcibly displaced in the region, including 3.1 million refugees and asylum seekers, and 8.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Central Sahel, Lake Chad Basin, and the Central African Republic.

The EU is one of WFP’s long-standing partners helping to address not only food and nutrition crises but also to support WFP’s geospatial food security analysis in the region delivering timely, cost-effective, and reliable data to inform early warning systems, vulnerability assessments, and the targeting and prioritization of humanitarian and development interventions.

WFP calls for increased investments to address immediate humanitarian needs and expand sustainable solutions. This approach is essential for reducing long-term reliance on emergency aid.