Intense fighting in Sudan has driven the Zamzam internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in Northern Darfur, host to half a million IDPs, into famine conditions, according to a new food security update from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) released today. One in five households in this area face an extreme lack of food with little to no options to feed themselves. 

755,000 people across 10 states in Sudan are facing catastrophic levels of hunger (IPC5), and experiencing an extreme lack of food. These numbers may be much higher in reality as many areas remain inaccessible to verify numbers across Sudan due to active fighting. The International Rescue Committee is once again warning of the need to scale up humanitarian access which would require conditions like a cessation of hostilities and unimpeded access. 

Eatizaz Yousif, IRC Country Director for Sudan, said:

“An escalation of violence over the last few months has severely hindered humanitarian access to parts of Northern Darfur resulting in a near-collapse of the healthcare system. This extreme level of hunger where people, especially children, are starving to death every day, is expected to persist until at least October. If the conflict continues and humanitarian access remains constrained, the situation risks deteriorating beyond October. 

“There has been no food assistance distributed in Zamzam camp since April this year while prices for goods have soared, according to the Famine Review Committee. Families have depleted their assets and without assistance, they have extremely limited options for food and are unable to cope. Alarming levels of malnutrition, especially among children, means an increased risk of infectious diseases without health care services. An immediate ceasefire is now more critical than ever to prevent mass deaths resulting from a hunger crisis that is rapidly spreading across Sudan. Already, more than half of Sudan’s population is now facing crisis levels of hunger or above, the worst in Sudan’s history. 

“We have been warning for months that the widespread conflict across Sudan is driving alarming levels of hunger, and now a perfect storm of conflict, low food production this lean season coupled with restricted humanitarian access will lead to horrific levels of hunger and deaths. This latest data is a clear alarm and call to action: the Sudanese people need an immediate halt to the fighting and for the restoration of humanitarian access to the most affected areas.” 

The IRC response in Sudan:

The IRC has adapted and scaled up our programming in Sudan to address increased humanitarian needs. We are supporting people who have been displaced internally through multi-purpose cash assistance, health and nutrition, and water, sanitation, and hygiene programs. The IRC also provides protection and empowerment services for women and children, including gender-based violence survivors in Blue Nile, Gedaref, White Nile, and Khartoum states. We have established offices in new regions, including Port Sudan, and are in the process of launching an emergency response in River Nile state to deliver primary health care services, cash assistance, safe water, and sanitation and hygiene services to vulnerable communities. We are also working to establish a presence in new locations to address gaps in humanitarian coverage and expand our programming in response to the enduring humanitarian crisis. The IRC is also working in Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Uganda to support refugees from Sudan. To learn more about IRC’s programming in Sudan, go here.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of International Rescue Committee (IRC) .

More than a third of the world’s population could not afford a healthy diet in 2022, and some regions have yet fully to recover from the harms wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an innovative data set published in the 2024 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, the flagship hunger report issued last week by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and four sister United Nations agencies.

While food prices increased throughout 2022, pushing up the average cost of a healthy diet, this was largely offset by economic recovery and the ensuing positive income effects. As a result, some 35.4 percent of the global population, equal to 2.826 billion people, were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2022. That compares to 36.4 percent and 2.823 billion in 2019. However, this recovery to  pre-pandemic levels in 2022 was achieved in an uneven manner across regions.

“In 2022, the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet dropped below pre-pandemic levels in the group of upper-middle- and high-income countries. In contrast, low-income countries had the highest levels since 2017,” the first year for which FAO has published estimates, said Maximo Torero, Chief Economist of FAO. 

The finding highlights “a major structural problem of our agrifood systems,” said David Laborde, Director of FAO’s Agrifood Economics and Policy Division. He noted this part of the SOFI 2024 report revealed significant variation across and within regions that in turn point to where national and international attention should be prioritized.

Key findings

The share of people in Africa unable to afford a healthy diet was 64.8 percent. In Asia, the figure is 35.1 percent; in Latin America and the Caribbean, 27.7 percent; in Oceania 20.1 percent; and in Northern America and Europe, 4.8 percent.

In low-income and lower-middle-income countries, the number of people unable to afford healthy diets grew from 2019 to 2022, an outcome that reflects how post-pandemic economic recoveries were unevenly shared and how more advanced economies were better placed to cope with supply-chain shocks and worldwide inflationary pressure on food commodity prices.

The SOFI 2024 report details the methodology used to calculate the affordability of a healthy diets, defined as comprising diversity, adequacy, moderation and balance.

The main takeaway is that the prices, in purchasing power parity (PPP), rose significantly – a global average of 6 percent in 2020 and 11 percent in 2021 – but the impact was diluted where income growth was also robust and where food as a share of household budgets was lowest, as in higher-income countries with greater fiscal capacities.

“The uneven progress in the economic access to healthy diets cast a shadow of achieving Zero Hunger in the world, six years away from the 2030 deadline,” the SOFI report says.

“There is the need to accelerate the transformation of our agrifood systems to strengthen their resilience to the major drivers and address inequalities to ensure that healthy diets are affordable for and available to all. But there is also a need to assure people that can access and consume healthy diets,” said Torero.

Mapping the details

The global average cost of a healthy diet rose to 3.96 PPP dollars – a measure that compares purchasing power parity across economies – in 2022.

Subregional variations were considerable, ranging from a high of 5.34 PPP dollars in Eastern Asia to a low of 2.96 PPP dollars in Northern America. For Africa, the average price was 3.74 PPP dollars; for Asia 4.20 PPP dollars; for Latin America and the Caribbean 4.56 PPP dollars; for Oceania 3.46 PPP dollars and for Northern America and Europe 3.75 PPP dollars, with a sizable difference between Southern Europe, at 4.15 PPP dollars and Western Europe at 3.01 PPP dollars.

1.677 billion people living in lower-middle-income countries cannot afford a heathy diet, and the same holds for 503 million people living in low-income countries. Combined, these account for 77 percent of people unable to afford healthy diets.

People who cannot afford the least-cost healthy diet in their countries are likely facing at least some degree of food and nutritional insecurity and thus face the risk of swelling the ranks of the hungry as measured in SOFI’s traditional measures of chronic hunger as well as chronic conditions such as stunting and wasting.

FAO’s ongoing foray into gauging and tracking the cost of affordable diets offers an early warning indicator of sorts. As the alarm is greatest where countries’ fiscal capacities are weakest, and where the cost burden perpetuate itself by dragging down economic growth, the data in SOFI 2024 highlight the need for greater and more innovative investments in agrifood systems, the topic of the second section of the flagship report.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In the last 12 years, the number of infants under six months of age who are exclusively breastfed in Nigeria has increased by more than 10 per cent. Today, 34 percent of infants in Nigeria benefit from this healthy start in life, translating to hundreds of thousands of babies whose lives have been saved by breastfeeding.

While this significant leap brings us closer to the World Health Organization target of increasing exclusive breastfeeding to at least 50 per cent by 2025, there are persistent challenges that must be addressed.

“Breastfeeding is the foundation of lifelong health and well-being. It is a simple, cost-effective, and natural way to provide infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development”, said Cristian Munduate, UNICEF Nigeria’s Country Representative. “However, despite its proven benefits, exclusive breastfeeding rates in Nigeria remain low. Many mothers face cultural, social, and practical barriers that prevent them from breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of their child’s life”.

During this critical period of early growth and development, the antibodies in breastmilk protect babies against illness and death. This is especially important during emergencies, when breastfeeding guarantees a safe, nutritious, and accessible food source for infants and young children. Breastfeeding reduces the burden of childhood illness, and the risk of certain types of cancers and noncommunicable diseases for mothers.

This World Breastfeeding Week, under the theme “Closing the gap: Breastfeeding support for all,” UNICEF and WHO are emphasizing the need to improve breastfeeding support as a critical action for reducing health inequity and protecting the rights of mothers and babies to survive and thrive.

In Nigeria, key gaps in breastfeeding support include insufficient maternity leave policies, lack of workplace support, and inadequate access to breastfeeding education and services, particularly in rural areas. Only seven states offer the recommended 24 weeks of paid maternity leave, and many women return to work without the necessary support to continue breastfeeding.

To close these gaps, the government, employers, healthcare providers, and communities need to collaborate. Policies should be enacted to extend paid maternity leave, create breastfeeding-friendly workplaces, and provide comprehensive breastfeeding education and support services.

This year, UNICEF is supporting Nigeria in setting the world record for the highest number of lactating mothers breastfeeding simultaneously. 30,000 mothers will breastfeed their babies across all 36 states in Nigeria and the FCT on August 1st, 2024. This initiative not only aims for a record but also seeks to draw attention to the importance of breastfeeding, as well as challenge harmful nutrition norms and practices, specifically the introduction of water and other pre-lacteal feeds during the first six months of a baby’s life.

To support progress, data needs to be available on policy actions that make breastfeeding possible such as family friendly employment policies, regulation of the marketing of breastmilk substitutes, and investment in breastfeeding. Improving monitoring systems will help boost the effectiveness of breastfeeding policies and programmes, inform better decision-making, and ensure support systems can be adequately financed.

When breastfeeding is protected and supported, women are more than twice as likely to breastfeed their infants. This is a shared responsibility. Families, communities, healthcare workers, policymakers, and other decision-makers all play a central role by: 

Increasing investment in programmes and policies that protect and support breastfeeding through dedicated national budgets.
Implementing and monitoring family friendly workplace policies, such as paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks and access to affordable and good-quality childcare.
Ensuring mothers who are at-risk in emergencies or under-represented communities, receive breastfeeding protection and support in line with their unique needs, including timely, effective breastfeeding counselling as part of routine health coverage.
Improving monitoring of breastfeeding programmes and policies to inform and further improve breastfeeding rates.
Developing and enforcing laws restricting the marketing of breast-milk substitutes, including digital marketing practices, with monitoring to routinely report the Code violations.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of UNICEF Nigeria.

The number of children in Sudan seeking treatment for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) has surged to unprecedented levels with clinics overwhelmed and global experts on food security warning that parts of the country are in the worst possible phase of hunger, Save the Children said. 

A health and nutrition manager for Save the Children in the central southern state of South Kordofan said the number of under-fives admitted with SAM in June alone was 99% of the programme’s expected case load for the year [1] . 

In one clinic cases of SAM – the most extreme form of malnutrition – increased nearly fourfold between June 2023 and June this year, new data shows [2]. SAM shuts down children’s immune systems and makes otherwise non-life-threatening conditions like diarrhea potentially lethal.  

The aid group’s findings come as the latest report from the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – the leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises – flagged the increasing severity of the food crisis in the country [3].  

More than 15 months of conflict have killed and injured thousands of children, forced many into child labour, destroyed healthcare and education, upended food systems, and created the world’s worst child displacement crisis with 6.7 million children now forced from their homes [4].   

Displaced people are now overwhelming health facilities, turning up starving, sick and exhausted, according to Save the Children staff. They are seeing an increase in conditions such as acute respiratory infections (ARI), which can be caused and exacerbated by malnutrition [5]. 

Munir*, health and nutrition manager for Save the Children in South Kordofan, said: 

“IDPs (internally displaced people) have lost all basic needs due to conflict, they can only eat inadequate food, and most children show signs of exhaustion, fatigue, severe wasting and illness. Most ARI cases are linked with poor diet and malnutrition. 

Describing the conditions in Kordofan, Munir* said: “I saw schools, mosques, public institutions, villages, and some roads in cities full of displaced people sleeping in plastic sheets without mattresses or beds. Many of them complain of chronic diseases and high costs of medicine and food, and some of them depend for food on subsidies from charitable people or organizations, but the aid is not enough. The profession of begging has spread in the Kordofan areas.” 

Child labour is rampant as families are forced to take desperate measures to get their hands on whatever food they can to stay alive, Save the Children said, with children toiling in temperatures as high as 45 degrees C. 

In South Kordofan, children younger than 15 are doing manual labour such as carrying heavy jerry cans full of water, washing carts, unloading heavy goods from trucks, construction and even driving rickshaws. 

In Central Darfur, Save the Children staff have come across children who have been completely separated from their parents and are now working in a local market [6].  

Meanwhile, the number of people seeking treatment at Save the Children health facilities in Central Darfur nearly doubled in the year to June 2024 [7]. Staff in Darfur are also overwhelmed themselves, with some having lost family members including children, their homes and their belongings. 

Dr Arif Noor, Country Director of Save the Children in Sudan, said: “In Sudan, time is running out to keep children alive. And yet parties to the conflict and those with international influence have failed to put an end to the fighting over and over again.  

“Some children who are surviving are forced to work in unimaginable conditions, some separated from family members and vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.  

“We have been saying it for 15 months and we will keep saying it until we no longer need to – it is time for an immediate and lasting ceasefire, and for a mammoth surge of support for the 14 million children in Sudan whose lives have been shattered.” 

Recent Save the Children analysis of IPC figures found that 16.4 million children, or three in every four children, faced “crisis”, “emergency” or “catastrophe” levels of hunger – almost double the figure of 8.3 million from last December [8]. 

The humanitarian response for Sudan is significantly underfunded, with donors contributing just 32.3% to a $2.7 billion UN response plan. 

Save the Children is calling for an immediate ceasefire and meaningful progress towards a lasting peace agreement. In the meantime, the child rights organisation is pushing for safe, unimpeded humanitarian access to civilians across border routes and fighting lines inside Sudan; the safeguarding of vital infrastructure essential for food systems, such as markets, agricultural land, and storage facilities; and immediate intervention from the international community to fully fund the Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan to save children’s lives.

Save the Children has worked in Sudan since 1983 and is currently supporting children and their families across Sudan providing health, nutrition, education, child protection and food security and livelihoods support. Save the Children is also supporting refugees from Sudan in Egypt and South Sudan. 

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Save the Children.