Almost 258 million people in 58 countries faced acute food shortages last year due to conflicts, climate change, effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, according to this United Nations report, a sharp rise from 193 million the previous year.

The fourth edition of the IGAD Regional Focus of the Global Report on Food Crises highlights the alarming high level of acute food insecurity in 2021 in the region, where about 42 million people were estimated to be in Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or above), exceeding the previous three-year high in 2020 by nearly 33 percent.

The annual Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) provides a consensus-based overview of the world’s food crises.

The IGAD region continues to host large populations of IDPs and refugees with limited coping mechanisms and fewer livelihood opportunities, exposing them to disproportionately high levels of acute food insecurity and malnutrition.

The data and the analyses in this report were prepared before the global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and do not account for its impact on vulnerable people in food-crisis situations.