More than 10 million people across the region are at risk of food shortages* and Early Warning Systems are on high alert: poor harvests and food shortages threaten to push even more families into hunger; cereal prices are 60 to 85 per cent higher than average prices over the last five years; and thousands of families are expected to exhaust their food reserves before March.
HAITI: TWO YEARS ON - Action Against Hunger have been present in Haiti for 15 years and teams were well placed to issue immediate emergency responses to both the earthquake and the cholera epidemic.
Within hours of the earthquake, teams were distributing emergency supplies and later in the year 100,000 people received cholera prevention kits.
As the Philippines struggles to cope with the aftermath of devastating floods last weekend, Action Against Hunger | ACF International’s emergency response teams are set to help more than 11,000 people.
Flash floods and landslides have swept over the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines, destroying homes and killing at least 650 people.
The curious line stretched across the wall of a village house, deep in the Sindh province of southern Pakistan. It was high—taller than my five feet and eight inches—and the village elders kept pointing at it as we stood in an otherwise spotless community outpost. They kept telling me about the progress they had made with the help of the international community in the year since the devastating floods of 2010.
Poor rains in the Sahel have led to depleted crop yields and pastures. In late October the government of Niger announced that this year’s harvest has left a deficit of more than 500,000 tons of cereals, meeting a mere 14 per cent of the population’s annual needs. With communities still reeling from the effects of the severe drought of 2009-2010 which affected 10 million people, hundreds of thousands of people now face food shortages.
Despite its recent history of political instability and recurring humanitarian crises, last year the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo celebrated 50 years of independence from Belgium. Despite the huge challenges faced by the country since its birth on 30 June 1960, the government ensured that the celebrations spanned the length and breadth of the D.R.
As international leaders descended on the coastal city of Durban, South Africa to determine environmental restrictions on some of the world’s worst pollutants, Action Against Hunger has urged the UN’s 2011 Climate Change Conference to act swiftly to institute programs to stave off the catastrophic effects that climate shocks are already having on developing countries.
Thousands of families across northern Uganda are slowly rebuilding their lives as they recover from two decades of civil war and displacement. This process is doubly important for the women of northern Uganda, who, as central household figures, must overcome ingrained struggles of abuse if their families are to overcome hunger and poverty.
Three months after devastating monsoon rains caused extensive flooding in southern Pakistan for the second consecutive year, Pakistan faces a critical shortage of emergency funding—despite the government’s request for international assistance—with millions of in need of critical support as winter approaches.