CONTEXT
• Below-average harvests and limited agricultural income-earning opportunities continue to drive food insecurity in Angola as of May and have resulted in Crisis—IPC 3—or worse levels of acute food insecurity throughout the country, which are likely to persist through at least September 2024, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). Below-average precipitation levels for the sixth consecutive year during the 2023/2024 rainy season resulted in crop failure, depleted agricultural labor opportunities, and reduced yields of staple crops—such as beans, cassava, maize, and sorghum—across the country’s agriculture-reliant southwestern regions. Additionally, dry conditions were resulting in poor vegetation growth and inadequate grazing conditions for livestock as of May, which may increase households’ reliance on negative coping mechanisms, including preemptively selling valuable assets such as livestock.
• Inflation and increased fuel costs have also exacerbated food insecurity in Angola by contributing to elevated food prices and restricting household purchasing power. Angola’s annual inflation rate reached 30 percent in May after increasing for 13 consecutive months, marking the highest rate of inflation in the country since June 2017, according to FEWS NET. The increasing inflation continues to affect poor and very poor households’ ability to meet their minimum food and basic needs.
• As of June, Angola hosted at least 25,300 refugees, nearly 9,100 of whom are refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s greater Kasaï region mostly residing in Lunda Norte Province’s Lóvua refugee settlement and relying on humanitarian assistance to meet their basic food needs and for protection support, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports.
ASSISTANCE
• USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA) is supporting humanitarian partners in Angola to address the food needs of at-risk populations. USAID/BHA partner the UN World Food Program (WFP) continues to provide in-kind food assistance—including beans, maize meal, and vegetable oil—and livelihood support to refugees residing in Lóvua.
• USAID/BHA also supported the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF)’s nutrition screening of more than 610,000 children and admission of more than 41,000 children to the outpatient program for treatment for severe wasting—the deadliest form of malnutrition—in Huila and Benguela provinces between January and December 2023.
• In partnership with World Vision, USAID/BHA provided life-saving nutrition assistance to alleviate moderate acute malnutrition in children and access to safe drinking water to address the needs of populations affected by long-term drought in Cunene, Huila, and Namibe provinces in southwestern Angola in 2022, 2023, and 2024. World Vision worked with communities to rehabilitate water infrastructure in these three provinces.
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