Deterioration of livelihoods in pastoral areas of the Sahel exposes more households to food insecurity

Civil insecurity continues to disrupt food flows in the Lake Chad Basin. In several Sahelian countries, local grain supplies remain below average due to localized deficits, retention of stocks in production ponds and high producer prices. Demand is rising seasonally, more marked than in a typical year. In general, consumer prices are above average. The pastoral situation remains marked by low feed availability, resulting in early pastoral lean, and reduced exports to Nigeria, causing over-supply in local markets and terms of trade between livestock and grain to the detriment of pastoralists.

Most rural households are experiencing Minimal (IPC Phase 1) food insecurity favored by above-average agricultural production, the availability of own production for staple foods, and the use of normal livelihoods strategies. However, some poor households in urban and peri-urban areas, which are largely market-dependent, may have limited access to adequate food due to rising prices and low purchasing power.

Stressed (IPC Phase 2) food insecurity is affecting poor households in the regions of Wadi Fira, Kanem, Barh El Gazel, Batha and Moyen Chari in Chad, and eastern and western Mauritania as a result of poor harvests. It will persist until September in the Goundam Lakes area, the Niger Delta, the Western Sahel and in the pastoral areas of Gao and Timbuktu in Mali, the Sahel region in Burkina Faso, the pastoral areas of Tahoua, Agadez, Zinder, Maradi and several parts of agricultural and agropastoral areas in Niger.

Crisis (IPC Phase 3) food insecurity, which affects many households in the Diffa region of Niger and the Lake Chad region, as a result of the Boko Haram conflict, will last until September, as well as in Chad in the regions of Wadi Fira, Kanem, Bar El Gazel, Batha and Hadjer-Lamis where pastoral conditions are of concern. Crisis (IPC Phase 3) is also present in CAR as a result of the armed conflict, the Far North of Cameroon impacted by the Boko Haram conflict, production deficits and atypical food price increases, and Mauritania in the west and center of the agro-pastoral zone, and in the center of the Senegal River Valley due to crop failure and / or grazing and the significant deterioration of livelihoods that negatively affect consumption for poor households.

In Nigeria, despite the general improvement in security conditions and better access for humanitarian workers to conflict-affected populations, the latter will experience acute food insecurity at the Crisis (IPC Phase 3) level in northern Yobe and a large part of Borno, and Emergency (IPC Phase 4) in the north and east of Borno, and in the outlying areas of the Sambisa Forest (south Borno and Yobe). Food security conditions could be worse in areas that are still inaccessible.