West Africa hunger crisis deepens as the UN warns 55 million people could face severe food shortages without urgent funding and action

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that at least 55 million people across West and Central Africa are expected to face crisis levels of hunger or worse during the June to August 2026 lean season, unless urgent funding and humanitarian action are mobilised.

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In a statement released on Friday, the WFP said worsening food insecurity driven by conflict, displacement and deepening aid cuts has placed Nigeria among the four most affected countries in the region, alongside Chad, Cameroon and Niger, which together account for 77 per cent of the region’s food-insecure population.

The UN agency raised particular concern over Nigeria’s Borno State, where about 15,000 people are now at risk of catastrophic hunger, classified as IPC Phase 5, for the first time in nearly a decade.

The development comes amid prolonged insurgency and shrinking humanitarian support in the conflict-hit northeast.

The warning follows the latest Cadre Harmonisé analysis, which projects that more than three million people across West and Central Africa will face emergency levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 4) in 2026, more than double the 1.5 million recorded in 2020.

The WFP also estimated that over 13 million children in the region will suffer from acute malnutrition this year.

“The reduced funding we saw in 2025 has deepened hunger and malnutrition across the region,” said Sarah Longford, WFP’s Deputy Regional Director for West and Central Africa.

She warned that as needs continue to outpace available resources, desperation could fuel further unrest, displacement and instability.

In Nigeria, the WFP said cuts to humanitarian funding have forced the agency to drastically scale back operations, leaving thousands in the northeast facing the risk of catastrophic food shortages.

Funding shortfalls last year led to the reduction of nutrition programmes affecting more than 300,000 children, while malnutrition levels in several northern states have deteriorated from “serious” to “critical”.

The agency disclosed that only 72,000 people in Nigeria can be reached with food assistance in February, compared with 1.3 million people supported during the 2025 lean season, describing the reduction as drastic at a time when needs are rising rapidly.

Across the wider region, the WFP said reduced humanitarian support is pushing vulnerable communities beyond their capacity to cope.

In Mali, cuts in food rations have contributed to a 64 per cent surge in acute hunger in some areas since 2023, while parts of Cameroon could see more than 500,000 people cut off from life-saving assistance in the coming weeks without new funding.

Despite the grim outlook, the agency said its interventions continue to deliver strong results where resources are available.

Land restoration programmes in the Sahel, it noted, generate up to $30 for every $1 invested, with more than 300,000 hectares of farmland rehabilitated since 2018, supporting over four million people.

However, the WFP stressed that sustaining these gains requires urgent financial support, revealing that it needs more than $453m over the next six months to continue humanitarian operations across West and Central Africa.

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“To break the cycle of hunger for future generations, we need a paradigm shift in 2026,” Longford said, urging governments and partners to invest more in preparedness, anticipatory action and resilience-building to reduce long-term dependence on aid.