Here are ten facts that shed light on the hunger situation in Mali, a country which is struggling to emerge from a series of concurrent crises. Please help WFP raise awareness by sharing these important facts on Twitter.
75 percent of people in Mali rely on farming to feed themselves—a delicate situation when harvests are at the mercy of erratic rainfall.
Mali used to see a drought every 10-15 years. But climate change has created a new normal—with three droughts in the last decade.
Large areas of northern Mali remain unstable. Armed groups control large areas and banditry and criminality are rife.
The 2012-2013 conflict in Mali uprooted hundreds of thousands of people. As of January 2015, there are still 143,000 Malian refugees in neighbouring countries and 86,000 people displaced within the country.
Despite Mali’s steady emergence from the crises of recent years, 1.9 million Malians still struggle to feed themselves and their families. In 2015, WFP aims to support 1.2 million people in Mali.
WFP is helping to improve food security in Mali by supporting local farmers. In 2014, WFP bought US$5.6 million of food from smallholder farmers in Mali.
One third of Malian children under two are chronically malnourished. In 2015, WFP will help alleviate child malnutrition and improve access to education by providing school meals to 226,000 children in Mali.
In Mali, 4 out of every 5 children and more than half of the country’s women are anaemic. By providing the right food at the right time to pregnant women, new mothers and children, WFP is working to reduce malnutrition and break the intergenerational cycle of hunger.
WFP helps Malian communities respond to climate change by providing food or cash while they create and maintain
WFP-Mali buys an average of 30 percent of its food locally—surpassing the global WFP goal of 10 percent. In 2014 this contributed US$18 million to the local economy.
