Action Against Hunger fears an unprecedented nutritional crisis

Food insecurity is worsening in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as armed conflict intensifies, while the humanitarian sector is experiencing a funding crisis on an unprecedented scale. Action Against Hunger (ACF) fears an unprecedented nutritional crisis.

According to the latest report from the Integrated Food Insecurity Classification (IPC), almost 28 million Congolese – or more than a quarter of the population – will be acutely food insecure (IPC phase 3 or higher) between January and June 2025. This is 2.5 million more people than originally projected in the IPC report published in October 2024. This crisis is fuelled by armed conflict, systemic poverty, lack of access to basic services and repeated health and climatic shocks. As a result, millions of families are depleting their resources, adopting negative coping strategies to try to meet their basic food needs, unable to afford healthcare and suffering from high levels of acute malnutrition.

The situation is particularly worrying in the east, in the provinces of Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika, where 10.2 million people are in IPC phase 3 or above. Of these, 2.2 million internally displaced people, living in extreme poverty, are in phase 3 or above, including 738,000 in an emergency situation (phase 4). In the west, 21% of the population of Maï-Ndombé, also affected by armed conflict, is in IPC phase 3 or above according to the October 2024 IPC report, and the Kwamouth territory, classified in IPC phase 4 in 2023, has not seen any positive evolution. “The populations most at risk of hunger are those affected by the intensification of fighting and who have fled the violence. They are losing access to land, food, water and healthcare“, explains Florian Monnerie, Director of Action Against Hunger in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Given the scale of these needs, humanitarian aid is struggling to keep up. The sudden freeze on funding from the United States, the largest donor of humanitarian aid to the DRC, has led to fears that the situation will worsen. “Mobilizing funds for humanitarian and development aid has always been a challenge in such a chronic crisis. Today, due to a lack of resources, actors in the field are forced to suspend or reduce their activities. This puts thousands of lives at risk,” continues Florian Monnerie.

Action Against Hunger, which had planned to treat 45,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in crisis situations and to provide healthcare for 360,000 children by 2025-2026, has been unable to take on any new cases since March, first because of the freezing of humanitarian action and then because of the absence of payments from the American donor. Only the 2,000 children already in care continue to receive treatment.