Drought in the Horn of Africa: progress report on the rapid response and mitigation plan to avert a humanitarian catastrophe (January - December 2022)
The Horn of Africa continues to face its worst drought in 40 years, and this right after the region faced the worst desert locust upsurge in 70 years. As of December 2022, some 22 million people were expected to be facing high levels of acute food insecurity (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification [IPC] Phase 3 or above) in drought-affected areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, including 2.7 million people in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) in Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia and 214 050 people in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) in Somalia (FSNAU, 2022; IPC, 2022a, 2022b; WFP, 2022). Overall, 7.46 million children under five years of age are estimated to be facing acute malnutrition, including 1.85 million facing severe malnutrition (FEWS NET, 2022a). This progress report details FAO’s work to mitigate the impact of the worst drought in 40 years on food security and livelihoods in the Horn of Africa in 2022.
