The Central Sahel region, and more specifically the Liptako Gourma area, which includes Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, is facing a complex crisis caused by increasing competition for resources; climatic disruption; rapid population growth; high levels of poverty; community tensions; lack of state presence and basic social services; and violence caused by organised crime networks and non-state armed groups and the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic.
As of 25 June 2021, 1,896,332 people were displaced by the crisis, including 1,713,275 internally displaced persons (90% of the affected population) and 183,057 refugees (10%).
To help improve the situation, FAO and its partners have put in place a 2020-2021 regional response plan for Liptako-Gourma, mobilising USD 39.5 million to assist 1.4 million people in the region.
At the end of 2021, FAO, through its three country offices in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and its sub-regional office for West Africa, officially launched the second one-year cycle of agricultural and pastoral support for the Liptako-Gourma region in the presence of its technical and financial partners. This second response plan, worth US$73.4 million, aims to strengthen the livelihoods of 1.63 million people in the region.
For the 2021-2022 season, FAO intends to support the most vulnerable households through the provision of emergency agricultural inputs, livestock distribution, implementation of social protection activities (conditional and unconditional cash transfers to agro-pastoralist and pastoralist households) and livestock livelihood protection (distribution of livestock feed, provision of emergency animal health services)
It should be recalled that with the first response plan 2020-2021, FAO provided agricultural and pastoral support, including conditional and unconditional cash transfers amounting to USD 3 million to 21,780 households. Support also included the distribution of 1,800 tonnes of feed and 21 tonnes of fodder seed to 10,550 pastoralist households, as well as the vaccination and de-worming of 32,900 cattle and 99,080 small ruminants.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of FAO Regional Office for Africa.
