Tracking food security trends in vulnerable countries
The Global Food Security Update provides a quarterly overview of key food security trends in vulnerable countries. Information is provided by WFP VAM field teams and partners.
In focus
• Conflict in Yemen is causing increasing food insecurity.
As of June, at least 6 million people are facing Emergency (IPC Phase 4) food insecurity. Millions more could easily fall into the emergency conditions unless a political solution is found quickly.
• The protracted conflict in Syria has caused 50 percent of the population to flee their homes, leaving 7.6 million people internally displaced and more than 3.8 million taking refuge in neighbouring countries. In Syria, 9.8 million people are estimated to be in need of various levels of food, agricultural and livelihood assistance.
• Since January 2014, 2.9 million people in Iraq have fled their homes. Some 8.2 million, nearly a quarter of the population, currently require some form of immediate humanitarian support. Around 4.4 million people require urgent food assistance – a staggering 57 percent increase on the 2014 estimate. WFP monitoring suggests that food security has deteriorated in areas that are directly affected by conflict, where nearly one in ten households is consuming a borderline or inadequate diet.
• In West Africa, the Cadre Harmonisé analysis estimates that up to 7.3 million people will face Crisis and Emergency levels of food insecurity through August 2015. In the coming months, food security could deteriorate because of population movements in the north of Mali and in the Lake Chad basin, the continuing Ebola epidemic, and poor pasture and crop production in the Sahelian strip.
• South Sudan’s latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis identified increasing needs, with 4.6 million people projected to face severe food insecurity (IPC Phases 3 and 4) during the lean period of May–July 2015.
• The Nepal earthquake has significantly impacted food security, with an estimated 1.4 million people in need of food assistance (excluding the urban Kathmandu Valley area). The majority of these live in the most heavily affected areas along the seismic belt and in the mountains, with the rest living in the less severely damaged but densely populated southern areas.
• The food security situation in Ukraine has deteriorated since October 2014. Thirty percent of the population in conflict-affected areas are consuming an inadequate diet.
• In Southern Africa, regional crop production is expected to decrease as a result of uncharacteristic and erratic 2014/15 rainfall.
• Across central Ethiopia, early season dryness worsened in April, creating large rainfall deficits that damaged crop production and pasture development. Belowaverage Belg season crop production is expected.
