Averting the unfolding historic food crisis in the Sahel

Without urgent action, 35 million people in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger will have virtually no food to eat during the next lean season, according to Sahel: Averting Another Historic Food Crisis, a new report from Action Against Hunger. The lean season in the Sahel region occurs annually between harvests in June, July, and August. The report, which is based on direct evidence gathered by Action Against Hunger, concludes that the three primary drivers of this hunger crisis are prolonged conflict, climate change, and COVID-19: Conflict in the Sahel has displaced more than nine million people, destroyed livelihoods, and disrupted local economic systems; Movement restrictions to stop the spread of COVID-19 have prevented hundreds of thousands of herders from moving their livestock to find water and pasture; and The climate crisis continues to exacerbate extreme weather events that impact access to food, such as droughts, biomass degradation, and flooding.