The EU announces €235 million in humanitarian aid for Central and West Africa

The European Commission has announced €235 million in humanitarian assistance to support the most vulnerable people in Central and West Africa.

This funding will support people affected by current conflicts and food crises, forcibly displaced people, host communities and hard-to-reach populations.

In Nigeria, €33 million will support life-saving health and nutrition actions targeting areas of north-eastern and north-western Nigeria.

Funding will focus on areas where services are insufficient and acute malnutrition exceeds emergency thresholds, while providing protection, food assistance, education in emergencies and water, sanitation and hygiene. Nigeria is facing the worst food and nutrition crisis in years, with nearly 35 million children in need of emergency food assistance and 6.4 million children severely malnourished, including 2 million in life-threatening conditions.

In the Central Sahel, €75 million in EU humanitarian funding will provide a life-saving emergency response to conflict-affected and hard-to-reach areas. With more than 12.4 million people in need of assistance, the response will prioritize protection alongside food assistance, health and nutrition services, emergency education, shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene.

Funding will also cover disaster preparedness, assistance for humanitarian airlift operations and actions that contribute to the safety of interventions and partners.

In Cameroon, more than €16.6 million will support food, health and nutrition, protection, emergency education, water, sanitation and disaster preparedness actions, addressing the needs of the most vulnerable displaced populations.

Nearly 3 million people require humanitarian assistance and, among these, 2.2 million are forcibly displaced.

In the Central African Republic, €22 million will fund multi-sectoral aid, including food and livelihood assistance, disaster preparedness, emergency education, health and nutrition, shelter and protection. 2.3 million people need assistance.

The country is home to more than 35,000 Sudanese refugees and approximately 7,000 Central African Republic returnees. Of the total funding, €4.5 million pledged by the EU at the third international Sudan conference in Berlin will support the response to the consequences of the Sudanese crisis in the country.

In Chad, over €72 million will provide essential services such as water, sanitation, shelter, protection and food to address forced displacement in the provinces of Est, Lac and Hadjer Lamis, supporting both newly displaced people and host communities.

Since April 2023, Chad has welcomed 919,000 Sudanese refugees and 389,700 Chadian returnees. Of the total allocation, €60.8 million, announced at the third international Sudan conference in Berlin, will specifically address the needs of refugees and returnees from Sudan.

In Mauritania, €4.8 million will support the emergency response for Malian refugees, Mauritanian returnees and vulnerable host communities, supporting food assistance, water, sanitation, shelter and protection services as well as disaster preparedness actions.

The number of refugees and asylum seekers in Mauritania has now exceeded 400,000 people, the majority of whom are currently hosted in the Hodh Chargui region in south-eastern Mauritania.

In coastal countries, more than €6 million will provide emergency response, food assistance, health, protection and coordination services in the areas most affected by insecurity and population displacement. In Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Togo, more than 270,000 people are forcibly displaced.

A further 6.4 million euros will support regional projects.

Blueprint reports that the intervention takes place in a context in which the West and Central African region has been plagued by various humanitarian crises, with significant needs for humanitarian assistance. The main driver of these crises is conflict, further intensified by the negative effects of climate change and a multitude of local factors related to governance, demography and access to land and resources.

The epicenter of these crises is in the Central Sahel and Lake Chad regions, with the Central Sahel conflict spilling over to coastal countries, fueling large-scale displacement both within and across borders.

The current crisis in Sudan is also severely impacting the resilience of eastern Chad. In addition to these intertwined dynamics, autonomous crises persist in northwestern Nigeria, northwestern and southwestern Cameroon (NWSW), and the Central African Republic (CAR).