ReliefWeb

In Numbers

• 370 mt of food assistance distributed
• USD 5,364 cash-based transfers made
• USD 3.9 m six months (April – September 2021) net funding requirements
• 119,374 people assisted in March 2021

Operational Context

With an estimated 26.4 million inhabitants, Côte d’Ivoire has maintained peace and experienced remarkable economic recovery since the end of the 2010-2011 post-electoral crisis. Despite its growth, almost half of the population (46 percent) continues to live under the poverty line and the majority of the population suffers from the triple burden of malnutrition, represented by micronutrient deficiencies, undernutrition and overnutrition, slowing down WFP’s efforts towards Zero Hunger.

Since 1969, WFP Côte d’Ivoire has been providing support in alignment with the national context. WFP’s operations are currently focused on development interventions to improve food security, reduce malnutrition, enhance education achievements, and minimize gender inequalities. Activities are concentrated in northern and western rural areas, which are known to have higher concentration of food insecure and vulnerable populations.

Côte d’Ivoire is continuously experiencing a moderate increase of new confirmed COVID-19 cases. As of 28 March 2021, 43,180 cases are reported (including 38,719 recovered, 237 deaths and 4,224 active). WFP is continuing its operations and activities while strictly abiding by the health and sanitary measures to ensure the safety of its staff, partners, and beneficiaries.

Operational Updates

In the effort to better assist internally displaced persons (IDPs) and returnees affected by the October 2020 presidential election, WFP conducted post-distribution monitoring to evaluate the effectiveness of WFP’s assistance and the residual needs of the affected population. The monitoring results indicated that 29 percent of the IDPs remain affected and displaced mostly in Tonkpi and Cavally (western regions), where prevalence of food security is classified to be “under pressure” at 17 percent and 9 percent in respective regions (source: Cadre Harmonise March 2021). The report also indicated positive results of WFP’s food assistance, where 4.4 percent of WFP-assisted households were food insecure against 5.4 percent of non-assisted households (method used to assess food insecurity: Consolidated Approach to Reporting Indicators of Food Security (CARI)). Further leveraging on this outcome, WFP is planning an additional phase of cash assistance in the coming months to support returnees who lost their homes and sources of livelihoods.

In March, 119,270 schoolchildren were reached through the national school feeding programme in 613 WFP-assisted schools. To ensure the smooth operation, WFP conducted monitoring visits to 98 schools and continued to strengthen the capacity of the management and advisory board of these schools through sensibilization trainings. Some schools were encouraged to increase participation of community members and to activate monitoring committees to guarantee the local ownership of their local school canteens.

The issue of water scarcity in the northern region of Côte d’Ivoire is exacerbated by the climate change as the rainfall and temperature variability continue to impact the livelihoods of farmers. Accordingly, WFP-assisted smallholder farmer groups witnessed a significant decrease in yield during harvest season. To minimize this impact, WFP partnered with the local non-governmental organization Bureau de Formation et de Conseil en Développement (BFCD) to construct five water wells in two farming lands in Fononvogo and Kokaha (northern regions).