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Chad: Food Assistance Fact Sheet - August 9, 2018

Countries
Chad
+ 4 more
Sources
USAID
Publication date

SITUATION

  • Chad is a low-income, land-locked country that suffers from chronic food insecurity due to the effects of regional conflict, frequent drought, lack of income-generating opportunities and limited access to social services. An estimated 4.4 million people in Chad require humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.

  • Approximately 577,000 refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) reside in Chad because of ongoing conflict in the region, primarily in the Central African Republic (CAR), Nigeria and Sudan, the UN reports. The influx of Chadian returnees from conflict-affected countries also strains local resources and contributes to increased food insecurity among vulnerable communities.

  • According to the most recent Cadre Harmonisé (CH) analysis, approximately 990,000 people across the country are currently facing Crisis (Phase 3)* and Emergency (Phase 4) levels of acute food insecurity and require emergency food assistance. Food is most scarce from June–September. Of those requiring emergency food assistance, approximately 34,000 people face Emergency levels of acute food insecurity.

  • In Chad’s Sahelian belt, the country’s economic crisis and poor harvests have pushed vulnerable families to deplete their food stocks earlier in the year than usual, the Famine Early Warning Network (FEWS NET) reports. These households are dependent on purchasing food from markets and employing negative coping strategies, such as reducing food intake or selling productive assets to meet their immediate food needs.

*The Cadre Harmonisé (CH) is a tool used for the classification and quantification of acute food insecurity in West Africa and the Sahel. The CH scale, which is comparable across countries, ranges from Minimal (Phase 1) to Famine (Phase 5).

RESPONSE

  • USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (FFP) provides in-kind food assistance through the UN World Food Program (WFP) to support general food distributions and nutrition assistance for vulnerable, food-insecure Chadians and refugees from CAR, Nigeria and Sudan. FFP also supports the provision of in-kind food assistance using locally and regionally procured food, as well as cash transfers for food and food vouchers, supporting local and regional markets where possible.

  • With support from FFP, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) provides ready-to-use therapeutic food to treat children with severe acute malnutrition. UNICEF also collaborates with regional health authorities to improve acute malnutrition treatment services in Chad.