Highlights on food and nutrition security:

The report on Chad highlights several key aspects of food and nutrition security, emphasizing both current challenges and proposed policy measures to address them.

Current Challenges

Chronic Food Insecurity:

• Chad has experienced severe food insecurity for the fourth consecutive year in 2023, affecting about 2.1 million people, or one in ten Chadians. This is particularly pronounced in the crisis-affected eastern and southern provinces where 40% of the food-insecure population resides​.

Agricultural Disruptions:

• Insufficient rains and frequent flooding have reduced agricultural output, exacerbating food insecurity. Trade and agricultural disruptions, worsened by the refugee crisis, have led to staple shortages and inflation in local markets​.

Price Increases:

• The price of staple foods such as millet and sorghum has increased significantly (50% higher than the previous five-year average in some areas), further straining food security​

Economic Strain:

• Economic activities and food supply chains have been disrupted by ongoing conflicts and a large refugee presence, which has increased pressure on basic services and natural resources.

Policy Recommendations

Subsidized Food Sales:

• Expand well-targeted subsidized food sales operations beyond N'Djamena to support the poor and vulnerable in other regions.

Food Banks:

• Refill food banks with sufficient cereal stocks to mitigate periods of agricultural production deficits. For instance, the 2022-2023 cereal production is estimated at 2.9 million tons, with a gross deficit of 443,950 tons.

Investment in Agriculture:

• Strengthen fertilizer distribution systems, increase investment in water irrigation, and enhance the use of groundwater resources. These measures aim to improve agricultural resilience to climate change.

Economic Diversification:

• Promote economic diversification to reduce dependency on oil exports and build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households to better cope with shocks​.

National Safety Net:

• Invest in a national safety net system that is adaptive, productive, and focused on women. Strengthen the national social registry for better targeting of interventions and coordinate development assistance.

Support for Refugees:

• Enhance refugees’ access to basic services and scale-up economic inclusion programs for refugees and host communities as part of the national social protection system.​

These measures aim to mitigate food insecurity, improve agricultural productivity, and support vulnerable populations, including refugees, thereby enhancing food and nutrition security in Chad.

Disclaimer: This summary has been generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) language model developed by OpenAI. For comprehensive information and context, please refer to the full document.