Rising Extreme Poverty in West and Central Africa
Recent Developments
01March 2024: WFP projected nearly 55 million people in West and Central Africa would struggle to feed themselves during the June-August 2024 lean season.
02World Bank regional reporting continues to describe poverty as concentrated in fragile and conflict-affected countries across West and Central Africa, with about a quarter of the world’s extreme poor in the region.
03Regional analysis cited in 2024 continues to identify Central Africa as the subregion with the highest extreme poverty rate in Africa at 54.8%.
Interventions
- WFP emergency food assistance and lean-season response in conflict-affected areas of the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin.
- World Bank regional support focused on poverty reduction, resilience, and recovery in West and Central Africa.
- FAO and other humanitarian partners supporting food security, livelihoods, and resilience in climate- and conflict-affected zones.
What Works
- Emergency food assistance is effective in preventing acute hunger during lean seasons in high-risk areas, especially where market access is disrupted.
- Cash and livelihood support can help households maintain purchasing power and avoid distress sales of assets when food prices rise sharply.
- Integrated resilience programs that combine social protection, agriculture support, and conflict-sensitive local services are favored by major regional institutions for fragile settings.
How to Help
- Donate to humanitarian organizations working on food security and poverty reduction in West and Central Africa.
- Support NGOs and UN agencies delivering emergency food, nutrition, and livelihood assistance in conflict-affected areas.
- Advocate for increased humanitarian and development funding for fragile states in the Sahel, Lake Chad Basin, and Central Africa.
Make an Impact
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Verified Organizations
Organizations Helping(22)
Save the Children’s strategy is built around reaching children early, at scale, and through integrated services. In health, education, protection, and emergency response, it combines direct service delivery with community engagement, local partnerships, and advocacy to address both immediate needs and the structural causes that keep children from surviving and thriving.[1][2][9] A distinctive feature of its model is that it aims to “reach every last child,” including children in rural areas, conflict zones, and displaced communities, by adapting programs to local contexts and working through governments, service providers, parents, and communities. Rather than treating sectors separately, it often bundles interventions—for example linking education with health, nutrition, water and sanitation, and social-emotional support—to improve outcomes and resilience over time.[2][3][9] In emergencies, Save the Children uses a rapid-response, stay-for-recovery approach: it is among the first responders and remains after the initial crisis to support learning continuity, child protection, and family recovery.[2][3] In health and education, it emphasizes evidence-based methods such as behavior change campaigns, foundational literacy and numeracy programs, and community ownership to improve uptake and sustainability.[5][9]
Concern responded through the BRAVE programme in seven districts, providing immediate relief and early recovery support. Its aid package included food, hygiene kits, medical care, and other essential items for households affected by flooding.
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.
BRAC tackles extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa through a graduation-style, multi-pronged model that combines ultra-poor support, livelihood training, savings access, and enterprise development. In African countries where it works, BRAC supports vulnerable households with coaching, productive asset transfers, skills training, and links to markets and services so families can build stable incomes and move out of extreme poverty. It also runs women-centered programs and climate-resilience work to help households cope with shocks and fragile local economies.
