WFP Republic of Congo Country Brief, December 2023 – Congo

Operational Updates

• Severe flooding in late 2023 prompted the Government to declare a state of humanitarian emergency on 29 December 2023 in the departments of Likouala, Sangha, Cuvette, Plateaux, Pointe-Noire and Brazzaville.

• In keeping with WFP’s global initiative to reinforce assurance across the organisation, six staff members strengthened their capacities through training and best practice dissemination in cooperating partner management and the use of the UN Partner Portal to facilitate harmonised and strengthened collaboration between the UN and its partners.

Food assistance and nutrition support

• Through cash-based transfers (CBT), WFP assisted a total of 1,849 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, Kwamouth area), in Ngabé (Pool Department) and to 4,700 refugees from DRC (Yumbi district), in Bouemba (Plateaux Department).

• 16,603 refugees from the Central African Republic residing in Bétou, Likouala Department, benefitted from CBT.

• As part of the treatment and prevention of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM), WFP assisted 5,805 children aged 6 to 59 months and 4,680 pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls in the cities of Brazzaville,
Pointe-Noire, and the Departments of Lékoumou, Pool,
Plateaux and Likouala. The distributions were implemented through health centres with the National Directorate of Hygiene and Health Promotion.

• Through CBT, WFP assisted 1,492 households from Mindouli and Kindamba districts (Pool Department) participating in the Food for Assets project. The participants cultivated 86.35 acres of vegetables such as cabbage, peppers, okra and eggplants.

School Feeding & country capacity strengthening

• WFP delivered 177 mt of food to an estimated 321 schools in seven departments across the country under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) funded McGovern-Dole programme (2021-2026).

• As part of the local purchase component of the McGovern-Dole programme, WFP collected an estimated 24 metric tons of beans from smallholders in the Bouenza Department which will be used as part of the school feeding ration in the third term.