SIGAR: 17% Poverty Rise in Afghanistan Amid COVID-19
A report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) indicates that according to World Bank estimates, Afghanistan’s overall poverty level increased from 55% to 72% in 2020 due to economic contraction as the country braced for a second wave of COVID-19 in early 2021.
Beyond the public-health impact, the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted significant harm on Afghanistan’s economy, exacerbating many existing challenges, said the SIGAR report, which is titled Economic and Social Development.
By the end of 2020, Afghanistan’s unemployment rate was projected to rise to 37.9%, up from 23.9% in 2019, the report says.
Japan pledges new funding to FAO s emergency operations in Afghanistan
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Funding to provide time-critical agricultural support to 8 000 food insecure smallholder families
1 February 2021, Kabul Japan has announced today its decision to disburse USD 122.2 million to support humanitarian and development programmes in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The new funding is part of Japan s previous commitment to provide financial assistance to Afghanistan by up to USD 180 million per year between 2021 and 2024.
Japan s assistance will be allocated to various humanitarian and development sectors, including food security, so to provide urgent and immediate support to the hardest-hit population by the COVID-19 pandemic.
What is the impact of climate change on the Central African population?
Ibrahima Bah : The Central African Republic is a stark example of how far-reaching the repercussions of climate change and armed conflict can be.
Instability and an increasing scarcity of resources in the Sahel and Lake Chad regions is driving many livestock herders to seek water and pasture for their herds in the Central African Republic. With its favourable climate, scattered population and huge swathes of pasture, this country provides ideal conditions for grazing cattle.
There is very little in place at the moment to regulate this seasonal migration across borders. As a result, it can sometimes put huge pressure on natural resources and spark conflict between farmers and livestock herders. Having suffered the effects of armed violence since 2013, the Central African population is struggling to manage this further layer of conflict.
Joe Biden’s Saudi Arabian Arms Sale Freeze is Not Enough for Yemen
It only constitutes the beginning of a process to successfully disengage the United States and other regional actors militarily from the conflict.
The Biden administration’s January 26 announcement of a temporary freeze of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) marks a major step towards peace in Yemen. At the same time, it only constitutes the beginning of a process to successfully disengage the United States and other regional actors militarily from the conflict. As a next step, Biden’s team should extend the freeze and extract meaningful shifts in behavior from both Saudi Arabia and the UAE to achieve foreign policy goals that save lives and ultimately end the conflict in Yemen.
WFP Yemen Country Brief, December 2020
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53,000 mt of general food assistance
USD 7,000 cash-based transfers
USD 6.8 million commodity vouchers
USD 430 million six-month net funding requirements (January – June 2021)
Operational Updates
• Under the December cycle, WFP targeted 5.3 million people with general food assistance. Of these, 4.3 million people were targeted with in-kind food assistance, around 950,000 people with food vouchers, and some 618 people with cash assistance. On 19 November, local authorities in Aden governorate forcibly entered seven WFP warehouses. While five were vacated the same day, as of 31 December two warehouses remained occupied. Due to the access constraints to the warehouses, dispatches under the December cycle in the south could not be undertaken on time. Dispatches resumed on 14 December and were considered under the January cycle.