The Deputy Country Director of the World Food Program, WFP, in Cameroon, Aboubacar Guindo, has hinted that the organisation could be forced to suspend operations in Cameroon owing to financial constraints.
He disclosed it in an interview granted Radio France Internationale, RFI, on April 7. “We find ourselves in a particularly deficit financial situation which is such that we have recently had to make ration reductions. Initially, 70%, then 50% and today, after the end of April, we have no visibility as to possible financing,” he stated.
The distress call from this UN official is a consequence of the financial situation that the WFP is facing in Cameroon.
To recall that on March 26, in a joint letter signed by the WFP and the UN High Commission for Refugees in Cameroon, officials expressed the inability to continue their support for refugees living in Cameroon. For its action to continue optimally, immediate needs totaling 14 billion CFA francs (23.1 million dollars) were required, the statement had said.
It must be said that this low mobilization of funding intended for humanitarian aid is a direct consequence of the phenomenon which has been plaguing the international level but also in Cameroon for several years now.
Take for example in 2023, the requested needs were 245.5 billion CFA francs (407.3 million dollars), but according to the UN Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, as at December 31, 2023, only 125.8 million dollars was mobilized by donors. This in itself represented only 31% of necessary needs compared to 69% of unmet humanitarian needs. The trend was the same for the year 2022. At the end of this year only 42% of the required needs could be mobilized.
Story, Enanga Sophia
