Central African Republic

Although a new president and general assembly were elected in March 2016, large areas of the territory are still controlled by armed groups and the security situation remains volatile. While the signing of a Peace Agreement between the Government and 14-armed groups, on 06 February 2019, has improved the stability of certain areas, the humanitarian situation continues to be critical.  

With livelihoods disrupted by conflict, food production and household purchasing power have weakened. Rising food prices mean that 65 to 75 percent of disposable income is now spent on food, and, according to the , 45 percent of the population (2.1 million people) are food insecure. Of these, 85 percent are severely food insecure (1.8 million). Around 40 percent of children aged between 6 months and 5 years are stunted, their growth limited by lack of nutrients in their diet.

In collaboration with other humanitarian organizations, WFP has been providing emergency food and nutrition assistance to conflict-affected people in the C.A.R, reaching some 920,000 people in 2018.

The expansion of WFP’s response includes scaling up its general food distributions and nutrition activities (both prevention and treatment) to include targeting children under 5 as well as pregnant and -nursing mothers to tackle childhood malnutrition at its source. 

WFP’s crisis response work is continuing under the prevailing circumstances while its focus is gradually shifting towards developing and supporting the Government’s own Zero Hunger policies and social security programmes. By strengthening the country’s capacity for leading future crisis response and resilience-building activities, such as Food for Assets, school feeding and Purchase for Progress (P4P), WFP aims for a gradual transfer of responsibilities to the Government in the coming years.