Concerning nutritional and security situations in the Sahel region

The harvests already completed for maize and cowpea and those underway for millet and sorghum, are allowing households to replenish their stocks and have normal access to food. According to the projected production results (Ministry of Agriculture), cereal production is expected to be about 12 percent above the five-year average.

Good cereal production has had a positive impact on commodity prices on the markets. Prices are stable compared to the five-year average for maize, but slightly higher by about 8 percent for millet and sorghum, that’s harvests are still ongoing.  The marketing of cash crops at above-average prices also allows households to generate stable incomes for groundnuts (lower production) or higher incomes for cowpeas (higher production).

In the Eastern and Sahel regions, the security situation continues to deteriorate, with 37 security incidents recorded in January and 100 in October (OCHA, November 2018). Terrorist threats and attacks have displaced 39,731 people, more than 88 percent of whom are in Soum province. This has also lead to the closure of schools and health centers and disrupted the normal functioning of local markets, especially in the border municipalities of these regions.

Notwithstanding the concentration of malnutrition prevention programs carried out over the past four months, the nutritional situation remains worrying in the four provinces of the Sahel region with global acute malnutrition rates above the alert threshold ranging from 10.1 per cent in Soum province to 13.4 per cent in Séno province (DN, SMART, October 2018).