📋 Tender Overview
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is warning today of the interruption in a few weeks of its humanitarian programs in Chad due to lack of funding. This cry of alarm comes as thousands of Sudanese refugees continue to cross the Darfur border and as the rainy season threatens to cut off road access to humanitarian deliveries in camps in the east of the country, where nearly a million Sudanese refugees have found asylum.
Due to financial constraints, WFP assistance to 1.2 million Sudanese refugees and crisis-affected people, including new refugees from Sudan, will be suspended in April. Furthermore, the cross-border supply route for basic necessities to Darfur - the only reliable route to conflict-ridden western Sudan - is also under threat. This access has enabled WFP to provide assistance to one million people in Darfur since August, and the organization plans to increase its assistance to reach one million people per month.
WFP is making considerable efforts to purchase, transport and preposition sufficient food stocks in eastern Chad to supply both its refugee response and its cross-border operations in Darfur during the rainy season, during which the roads will become impassable, forming rivers of mud littered with stranded trucks. However, without sufficient funding, these operations prove impossible.
"We are in a race against time. The small window for prepositioning supplies will close quickly and our resources are dwindling in this dramatic time. We have already reduced our operations to proportions that would have been unthinkable only ago few years, plunging hungry people into a much more critical situation,” said Pierre Honnorat, WFP representative and country director in Chad.
In Chad, the WFP is facing an unprecedented financial crisis and has already made budget cuts. Since conflict in Sudan erupted last year, erratic funding has forced WFP to focus on immediate needs, shifting its efforts to new Sudanese refugees. In April, the WFP will be forced to cut off all assistance to new waves of Sudanese refugees. For months, the majority of refugees from Cameroon, the Central African Republic and Nigeria have not received any assistance due to lack of funds. Reduced rations fuel competition between refugees, returnees and host communities over already limited resources, sowing the seeds of tension and instability.
“The spillover of the Sudanese crisis is overwhelming the humanitarian response in Chad, already underfunded and overburdened. We need donors to prevent the situation from becoming a total catastrophe,” warned Mr. Honnorat.
Ten months after the outbreak of violent conflict in Sudan, more than 559,000 Sudanese refugees and 150,000 Chadian returnees have entered Chad, which now hosts more than a million refugees, one of the largest refugee populations and the fastest growing in Africa.
Chad is also facing its fifth consecutive year of food crisis, with record acute hunger expected to affect 2.9 million people during the June-August lean season, coinciding with the rainy season. In February, the government declared a state of food and nutrition emergency, underscoring the severity of the crisis.
The majority of refugees cross the border carrying the burden of trauma, hunger and horrific tales of violence. They are entirely dependent on humanitarian aid to survive. WFP assessments show that food consumption is worrying or bordering on acceptable for 90% of new refugees, 77% of pre-existing refugees and 67% of local communities in the east of the country. The nutritional situation is particularly worrying: 40% of Sudanese refugee children under the age of five suffer from severe anemia.
“It is unthinkable to reduce support for communities facing this level of vulnerability. We are forcing families to skip meals and eat less nutritious foods, setting the stage for nutritional crises, crises of instability and displacement crises,” Mr. Honnorat warned.
To ensure continued support for people affected by the crisis in Chad over the next six months, WFP urgently requires $242 million.
