The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Friday that without urgent funding, life-saving food aid in Africa's Sahel region will come to a halt in April 2025. The warning comes as the lean season, the period between harvests when hunger peaks, is expected to arrive earlier than usual across the region this year. Millions of children, women and men, including refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs), continue to rely on WFP food assistance to survive.
WFP said that in April 2025, funding shortfalls will force the UN agency to suspend food and nutrition assistance to 2 million crisis-affected people, including Sudanese refugees in Chad, Malian refugees in Mauritania, IDPs and vulnerable food-insecure families in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.
The UN food agency urgently requires US$620 million to ensure continued support for crisis-affected people in the Sahel and neighboring countries over the next six months.
“The global shrinkage of foreign aid is posing a significant threat to our operations in Western Africa, especially in Central Sahel and Nigeria,” said Margot van der Velden, WFP's Regional Director for West Africa.
“With millions expected to face emergency levels of hunger at the peak of the lean season, the world must step up support to prevent this situation from getting out of control. We need to act now to allow WFP to reach those in need with timely support.”
Global humanitarian funding plummets in 2025, largely due to extreme funding cuts by the United States. While funding has been declining since 2022, despite rising needs, this year's level is expected to fall to a record low following the brutal cuts imposed by the new US administration.
Even before the recent developments in Washington, the global humanitarian system was facing a massive funding crisis after years of growing emergency needs and donors unable or unwilling to respond to millions of women, children, and men in need.
The World Food Programme is the world's largest humanitarian organization and is heavily dependent on US funding. In 2024, the United States accounted for $4.45 billion - more than 45 percent - of the total contributions of $9.75 billion.
Now, severe reductions in humanitarian aid funding by the United States are beginning to have a devastating impact around the world, putting hundreds of thousands of lives at risk and leaving tens of millions of people without access to the assistance they desperately need.
The consequences will be particularly devastating for the world's most vulnerable people, many of whom live in the Sahel region.
The latest regional food security analysis by Cadre Harmonisé, published in December 2024, shows that the Sahel is in the grip of an acute food security and nutrition crisis.
Between October and December 2024, 35.6 million people in the most vulnerable countries in the Sahel were acutely food insecure (crisis level or worse), including 25 million in Nigeria, 3.1 million in Cameroon, 2.7 million in Burkina Faso, 1.5 million in Niger, 2.4 million in Chad, and 900,000 in Mali.
Amid steadily increasing needs, the proportion of the population facing extreme hunger (IPC Phases 4 and 5) is projected to climb by more than 20 percent by June 2025. Yet the region remains chronically underfunded. As a result, WFP says it is regularly forced to make the difficult decision to cut rations, effectively taking from the hungry to feed the starving.
From June to August 2025 - the lean season - a staggering 45.9 million people are estimated to be acutely food insecure (crisis level or worse) in the six most affected Sahel countries, including 33.1 million in Nigeria, 2.7 million in Cameroon, 2.7 million in Burkina Faso, 1.5 million in Mali, 2.2 million in Niger and 3.7 million in Chad.
The hunger crisis is driven by conflict, displacement, economic crises and severe climate shocks. Currently, an estimated 11.3 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished or at risk of acute malnutrition in the hardest-hit countries.
In Chad, the influx of refugees from Sudan is putting enormous pressure on already limited resources, fueling tensions and competition between communities, and causing congestion at sites near the border with Sudan. More than 1 million people have crossed into Chad since the start of the war in Sudan in April 2023.
In Nigeria, the protracted humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by high inflation and weather-related shocks, is endangering the lives of children, pregnant women and entire communities. During the June-August lean season, northeast Nigeria bears a particularly heavy burden, with 4.8 million people facing acute hunger in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states - an increase from 4.3 million in 2023.
WFP said it is adapting its response to ensure urgent assistance reaches the vulnerable. The organization is calling for timely and flexible donor support and safe access to families in a challenging security and humanitarian landscape.
The Sahel is facing one of the fastest growing humanitarian crises in the world, with more than 33 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in 2025. At the same time, it is one of the most forgotten, long neglected in terms of international funding and attention.
“We need a paradigm shift to reverse the worsening trend of hunger and its impact on vulnerable women, men, and children,” van der Velden added.
Armed conflict, deteriorating security, political instability and widespread poverty are the main drivers of unprecedented humanitarian needs, particularly in the Central Sahel, which includes the countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, and the Lake Chad Basin, which covers parts of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.
This deepening humanitarian emergency is compounded by the effects of the climate crisis and global food insecurity. Rapid climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of natural disasters such as severe flooding. Devastating floods in 2024 affected more than six million people across the region.
Recent waves of displacement in the Sahel have brought the total number of people forced to flee to more than 10 million. As of March 2025, more than 7.6 million people were displaced within their own country, most of them in Burkina Faso (2.1 million IDPs), Nigeria (3.5 million IDPs) and Cameroon (1 million IDPs). At least 2.4 million people have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
This year, 33.1 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in the six most affected countries, including Burkina Faso (5.9 million), Cameroon (3.3 million), Chad (7 million), Mali (6.4 million), Niger (2.7 million), and Nigeria (7.8 million).
Without adequate humanitarian funding, the Sahel crisis risks escalating, putting the lives of millions more children, women and men at risk. As always, women and children bear the brunt of this crisis.
The UN and its partners have called for $4.67 billion in 2025 to provide assistance to 21.3 million of the most vulnerable people in Burkina Faso, Cameroon's Far North region, Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria's Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.