In the past decade, chronic food insecurity and malnutrition, cyclical drought, locust infestations, seasonal floods, disease outbreaks, and recurrent complex emergencies have presented major challenges to vulnerable populations in the West Africa region. Between FY 2005 and FY 2014, USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) and USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (USAID/FFP) have provided humanitarian assistance to lessen the impacts of a diverse range of crises, including food insecurity, malnutrition, high food prices, and locust infestations in the Sahel; complex emergencies in countries such as Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Mali, and Nigeria; meningitis, cholera, measles, and Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreaks in multiple countries; and flooding throughout the region.
Between FY 2005 and FY 2014, USAID provided more than $1.8 billion in humanitarian assistance to West Africa, comprising nearly $1.5 billion from USAID/FFP for food assistance in the form of U.S.-purchased food, locally and/or regionally purchased food, cash transfers for food, food vouchers, and related activities and more than $370 million from USAID/OFDA for agriculture and food security, economic recovery and market systems, health, nutrition, protection, shelter, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions, as well as support for humanitarian coordination, logistics, and the provision of relief commodities.
Over the last decade, USAID has sent Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs) to the region—most recently in 2014 to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea for the EVD outbreak and for food insecurity in the Sahel in 2005.
