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Info Service on UN Sustainable Development (Nov21/04) Geneva, 11 Nov (Kanaga Raja) – Around 27 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), or one-quarter of the country’s population, are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity between September and December 2021, making it the most food-insecure country in the world, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have said. According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, food insecurity in the country is the result of a combination of conflict, economic decline, high food prices and the lingering impact of the COVID- 19 pandemic. The IPC report said armed and communal conflicts persisted during the analysis period, displacing thousands of households and disrupting livelihoods. “North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces continued to face armed conflict, presenting logistical challenges for humanitarian response efforts,” it added. Furthermore, “poor rainfall distribution, crop diseases and pests as well as limited access to seeds have undermined food production in many parts of DRC.” The IPC report said that prices of staples and essential products increased by between 12% to 16% between June and August 2021, depriving households of access to food. According to the IPC report, although COVID-19 cases in the country remain relatively limited, with nearly 57,000 confirmed cases and 1,084 deaths by the end of September 2021, Kinshasa remains the most affected province with almost 60% of cases. “The DRC also suffers frequent outbreaks of cholera, Ebola and malaria,” it noted. “The food situation for many people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains desperate, with so many different obstacles – insecurity, disease, devastation and lack of infrastructure, low access to quality inputs and finance to name but a few – ganging up against their chances of being able to properly feed themselves and their families,” said Aristide Ongone, FAO Representative in the DRC. “The only way to break the cycle and shift these trends is to help them increase their resilience and productivity,” Ongone added. “These numbers are a wake-up call for more action and to do things differently,” said Peter Musoko, WFP DRC Country Representative and Country Director. “Right now, it feels like we’re bailing out a leaky boat. We need to get together with the government, our partners and the private sector, to figure out how to give hope to the people of this country,” he added. HIGH LEVELS OF ACUTE FOOD INSECURITY According to the IPC report, around 27 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above) between September and December 2021, of which around 6.1 million are experiencing critical levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 4). “The country has the largest number of highly food insecure people in the world,” it said. Although the latest analysis represents a slight improvement in comparison with last year’s figures (27.3 million), the caseload and severity remain unacceptably high, said the report. It noted that out of a total of 179 areas analyzed, five territories have been classified in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), mainly Djugu (Ituri Province), Kamonia and Luebo (Kasai Province), as well as Dibaya and Luiza (Central Kasai Province). “In the projection period, from January to June 2022, 25.9 million people or 25% of the analyzed population will likely be in IPC Phase 3 or above, including 5.4 million in Emergency (IPC Phase 4).” The IPC report said that the situation in Irumu (Ituri Province) and Gungu (Kwilu Province) will likely deteriorate, changing the classification of these areas to Emergency (IPC Phase 4), with respectively 65% and 45% of their populations facing critical levels of food insecurity. For the first time, the IPC conducted an Acute Malnutrition Analysis in DRC, revealing the country’s significant levels of acute malnutrition, said the report. “Findings show that nearly 860,000 children under five and nearly 470,000 pregnant or lactating women are likely to be acutely malnourished through August 2022 in the 70 health zones analyzed out of a total of 503 areas.” These estimates include more than 200,000 severely malnourished children requiring urgent care, the report added. This precarious nutritional situation is the result of a combination of several factors, mainly poor feeding practices, acute food insecurity, a high prevalence of childhood illnesses (malaria and diarrhoea) and outbreaks of measles and cholera, poor hygiene conditions (inaccessibility to adequate sanitation facilities), very low access to drinking water, and the consequences of the security situation – mainly massive population displacement, it said. During the peak malnutrition period between September 2021 and March 2022, 42 health zones are in a Serious nutritional situation (IPC AMN Phase 3) and eight in a Critical nutritional situation (IPC AMN Phase 4). The IPC report said that between April and August 2022, a significant deterioration of the nutritional situation will likely be observed, with eight health zones likely moving from a Serious situation to a Critical situation, five zones likely moving from an Alert situation (IPC AMN Phase 2) to a Serious situation, and 34 health zones likely remaining in a Serious situation if adequate measures to alleviate the aggravating factors of malnutrition are not taken. HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN DRC Providing some background to the crisis in the DRC, the IPC report said for decades, the DRC has been engulfed by a complex humanitarian crisis, fuelled by armed conflict, natural disasters and disease outbreaks. “While the poverty rate of the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa has fallen slightly over the past two decades, particularly in rural areas, the DRC, nonetheless, remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Women and children remain the most vulnerable,” it added. The IPC report said the crisis context is aggravated by a political standstill, the slowdown in economic growth, and structural weaknesses in terms of development. “To date, over 120 armed groups are active in the east of the country, uprooting more than 5.2 million people from their homes. As a result, fragmented armed groups often prevent civilians from accessing their fields.” War and unrest have been the most protracted in North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri, as well as Tanganyika and the central Kasai provinces more recently, it added. The situation remains particularly volatile and cyclical in the eastern provinces, driving millions into high levels of acute food insecurity. The impact of conflict on food security is long-lasting, the report underlined. “The country has suffered some of the most severe Ebola outbreaks the world has ever seen, second only to the 2013-2016 West Africa epidemic, which claimed over 11,000 lives.” For about two years from 2018-2020, the DRC faced an Ebola epidemic in Beni territory (North Kivu), said the report. It noted that on 7 February 2021, authorities announced the resurgence of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the east of the country, three months after declaring the end of a previous epidemic. According to the report, the country is also facing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which negatively affects the economy and the macro-economic framework. The IPC report also said the country’s multiple measles outbreaks have been compounded by low immunization coverage in vulnerable communities, malnutrition, weak public health systems, outbreaks of other diseases with epidemic potential, as well as poor access to health care for vulnerable populations and insecurity, which hampered the response in some areas. “The DRC continues to struggle with malaria, which affects all provinces and is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality,” it added. According to the report, nearly 70% of the Congolese population live in rural areas, mainly engaging in cropping, fishing, and livestock farming, in precarious conditions and absolute poverty, despite the considerable economic potential of these activities. “The absence or poor state of road and communication infrastructure are major causal factors, keeping the rural population in isolation,” it said. It said poor infrastructure has also negatively impacted access to essential social services and markets’ functioning, making the movement of goods and humanitarian assistance difficult. The IPC report noted that the economy of DRC has declined drastically since the mid-1980s, despite being home to extensive natural resources and mineral wealth with vast potential to support a healthy, functioning economy for the population. “In 2018, 72% of the population, especially in the North West and Kasai regions, lived in extreme poverty on less than $1.90 a day, according to the World Bank.” The IPC report said that in 2020, the country experienced its first recession in 18 years due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The DRC’s real GDP contracted by 1.7% in 2020 after increasing by 4.4% in 2019 and 5.8% in 2018, it added.
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