ReliefWeb

SITUATION

• Rising insecurity, primarily in northern and eastern Burkina Faso, is prompting population displacement. As of September 23, the UN reported an estimated 290,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs); however, relief actors note that due to escalating violence, as many as 500,000 Burkinabe may be displaced in northern Burkina Faso—an area that also hosts approximately 31,000 Malian refugees—by October.

• Overall, 1.3 million people in Burkina Faso urgently require humanitarian assistance in 2019 due to the effects of conflict, food insecurity, malnutrition and natural disasters, a July update to the country’s 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan reports.

• According to a March Cadre Harmonisé (CH) analysis, approximately 687,000 people—3 percent of the population— were in urgent need of food assistance from June–August, a period which includes the lean season when food is scarcest.*

• The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) anticipates that Crisis (IPC 3) levels of food insecurity will likely persist for vulnerable and conflict-affected households through January 2020, primarily as a result of insecurity, displacement, loss of livelihoods, and limited access to markets.

RESPONSE

• USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (FFP) enables the UN World Food Program to provide food assistance to vulnerable Malian refugees and Burkinabe through in-kind food distributions, cash-based transfers, and asset-building activities that strengthen livelihoods. FFP also works with the UN Children’s Fund to furnish locally bought ready-to-use therapeutic food to 19,000 severely malnourished children.

• FFP partners with Oxfam Intermón to deliver cash-based food assistance to more than 43,000 crisis-affected people in northern Burkina Faso. Additionally, in coordination with USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, FFP supports Catholic Relief Services in reaching 28,000 beneficiaries in Sanmatenga Province with cash-based transfers.

• FFP recently began a five-year, $50 million development activity with ACDI/VOCA to improve food security and resilience—the ability to respond to crises—among chronically vulnerable Burkinabe families in Center-North Region. A central component of the USAID Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced (RISE) II initiative, this intervention works across multiple sectors, including agriculture, disaster risk management, health, livelihoods, nutrition, and water and sanitation.