EAST AFRICA

Over 50 million people in Eastern Africa will face acute food insecurity this year, according to a new study backed by the World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is scaling up operations in Sudan, where 10.9 million people, 30 per cent of the population, are expected to need lifesaving support this year – the highest number in the past decade, the UN agency said on Tuesday. 

Millions of displaced families across eastern Africa will fall deeper into hunger as food rations dwindle due to humanitarian resources being stretched to the limit as the world grapples with a toxic cocktail of conflict, climate shocks, and COVID-19, UN humanitarians warned on Wednesday.

A funding shortfall is putting the lives of some three million refugees in eastern Africa at risk, two UN agencies warned on Tuesday. 

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges, significant gains have been made against Desert Locust encroachment in East Africa and Yemen, with an estimated 720,000 tonnes of cereal saved from the swarms of migratory pests across 10 countries: enough to feed five million people a year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday.

Sustained efforts to contain East Africa’s worst invasion of desert locusts in decades are forging ahead, despite limits on the flow of personnel and equipment stemming from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the UN food agency said Friday.