2024 Sahel Humanitarian Needs and Requirements Overview

The Sahel region, and the eight countries* it covers – Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal – is one of extraordinary cultural richness, huge diversity, and vast socioeconomic drive and potential.

Yet over the past few years, it has been assailed by an overwhelming series of challenges: a complex web of interconnected crises, marked by persistent political and social instability, a deteriorating security situation, and the inexorable creep of climate change.

Civilians have borne the brunt. Almost daily attacks have forced families from their homes. Entire villages have been burnt to the ground. Women and girls have been subjected to unspeakable acts of violence. And a generation of children have known little more than displacement, with few opportunities for education and scant hopes for the future.

Meanwhile, the Sahel sits at the centre of the climate crisis. Millions every year are affected by the rising impacts of flooding, drought, agricultural land degradation and dwindling grazing zones for livestock. Hunger and malnutrition are on the increase, public health hazards are surging, and already chronic poverty is deepening.

And while the two areas of greatest concern are the Liptako Gourma region (the crossroads of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger) and the Lake Chad basin (where Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria meet), this is a crisis that threatens the whole region, with deeply worrying signs that it is starting to spill over into the countries of the Gulf of Guinea.

Thanks to the generous support of donors, the humanitarian community accomplished an enormous amount in 2023. In those countries of the Sahel with Humanitarian Response Plans, 7.8 million people were provided with food assistance; 2 million children were offered some form of education; 902,000 survivors were supported following sexual abuse and assault; and 1.5 million farmers were reached with livelihood assistance.

This was despite persistent obstacles to the delivery of assistance, including insecurity, access impediments, a lack of community acceptance, frequently changing interlocutors in the public authorities ranks, and a serious lack of funding.

For 2024, six countries – Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria – have developed humanitarian response plans (HRPs). These aim to provide almost 21 million people with life-saving assistance and protection. In total, US$ 4.7 billion is required to meet these needs. While the numbers have gone down, make no mistake: humanitarian needs are deepening across the Sahel.

But as with many of our appeals, the perennial lack of funding has forced the humanitarian community to make extremely difficult decisions, prioritising the most urgent assistance to the most vulnerable communities. Alongside prioritisation, we are continuing efforts to increase the effectiveness of humanitarian action: ensuring affected communities are at the centre of designing the assistance they receive; engaging the expertise of local partners; and bringing together a wide variety of actors – development, peace, human rights, academia and research, social affairs, and the private sector – to strengthen preparedness, anticipate impacts, and provide holistic and sustainable solutions.

The situation in the Sahel is one that demands our full and immediate attention and proactive engagement.

I strongly urge donors to fund fully the 2024 Sahel HRPs on which so many people will rely for their survival. And I urge the international community to support the Sahel to address the multidimensional crises its faces – to prevent its spread across the region so that the people of the Sahel can have a chance to live in peace and prosperity.

Martin Griffiths

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator