Rising Extreme Poverty in West and Central Africa
Recent Developments
01March 2024: WFP said nearly 55 million people in West and Central Africa would face difficulty feeding themselves during the June-August lean season, up by 4 million from the November 2023 forecast.
022024: WFP reported staple grain prices rising by 10% to more than 100% above five-year averages in parts of the region, with currency inflation especially affecting Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and The Gambia.
032026: The World Bank projected regional growth of 4.3% for West and Central Africa, but confirmed that the region still contains about a quarter of the world's extreme poor and that 73% of its population lives in FCV-affected countries.
042024: FAO reported that conflict in the Central Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, plus climate extremes and economic crises, continues to drive food insecurity and malnutrition across the region.
Interventions
- WFP, FAO, and UNICEF are supporting emergency food security and resilience responses in West and Central Africa, including calls for coordinated action by governments and partners.
- World Bank regional programs and policy support focus on growth, poverty reduction, and recovery in Western and Central Africa, including fragile and conflict-affected states.
- CILSS-led Cadre Harmonisé food security monitoring is being used to guide humanitarian targeting and response planning across the region.
What Works
- Conflict-sensitive social protection and emergency food assistance can reduce short-term hardship in fragile and conflict-affected areas, especially when paired with market monitoring and rapid targeting.
- Investments in climate-resilient agriculture, safer trade corridors, and local food production help reduce exposure to price shocks and supply disruptions in import-dependent countries.
- Coordinated humanitarian and resilience programming is more effective where insecurity, inflation, and climate shocks overlap, because the crisis is multi-causal rather than poverty-only.
How to Help
- Donate to organizations providing food assistance, child nutrition, and emergency livelihoods support in West and Central Africa.
- Support local and international NGOs working on resilience, cash transfers, and agricultural recovery in fragile settings.
- Advocate for increased humanitarian funding and conflict-sensitive development support for Sahel and Central African countries.
Make an Impact
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Verified Organizations
Organizations Helping(17)
IFAD targets extreme rural poverty in Western and Central Africa by financing and implementing rural development and smallholder agriculture programs that boost productivity, incomes, and resilience to climate shocks. IFAD provides concessional financing and technical support for large-scale projects that improve agricultural value chains, expand access to rural finance and microcredit, develop irrigation and small-scale infrastructure, promote climate-smart agriculture and risk management (weather-indexed insurance, diversified cropping, conservation practices), and strengthen producer organizations and market linkages. IFAD’s country and regional programs are designed to reach the poorest rural households, especially women and youth, combining investment projects with policy dialogue to scale up social protection, digital financial inclusion, and private-sector partnerships that reduce vulnerability to economic instability and climate-driven crop losses.
Mercy Corps is responding in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya by distributing food and water and expanding emergency relief efforts. Its model is to combine immediate life-saving support with broader crisis response in the countries most affected by drought and food insecurity.
WFP addresses Niger’s food insecurity through emergency food assistance, nutrition treatment and prevention, school meals, and resilience-building programs. Its Niger work includes support for children under 2, pregnant and nursing women, and young girls; treatment of moderate acute malnutrition; micronutrient support; food-for-assets activities that help communities rebuild ponds and other assets; and homegrown school meals with Niger’s Ministry of Education.
Oxfam in West Africa addresses the drivers of poverty by working on small-scale farming, sanitation, employment for women, food justice, land rights, inequality, climate change, and discrimination. It combines long-term development with emergency response, aiming both to save lives during crises and help communities recover stronger afterward. Its regional framing explicitly connects poverty reduction with structural issues that are highly relevant to Western and Central Africa’s poverty crisis.
