CARE: Lasting Support for Refugees Worldwide

GLOBAL HUNGER CRISIS

As war in Ukraine continues and food supplies run short, deadly waves of hunger rise.

Help CARE prevent severe hunger now before millions face starvation.

  
An enduring global hunger crisis

For more than a year, the war between Russia and Ukraine has inflicted untold atrocities on the Ukrainian people. As the conflict continues, repercussions far beyond Europe are taking shape—escalating a global hunger crisis for 668 million people across 89 countries.[1]

When a crisis happens in one part of the world, it can send shock waves across the globe. For decades, Ukraine has been the breadbasket to the Global South. Before the war, Ukrainian and Russian grains provided more than one-third of the wheat imported by 45 African and least-developed countries.[2] When the conflict began, these exports plummeted immediately. Though some shipments have resumed under the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative, the agreement’s long-term future is uncertain and Ukraine’s exports under the deal remain low compared to historical averages.[3] In addition, the global rise in fuel and fertilizer costs is hampering the ability of small-scale farmers (roughly half of them women) to produce and store enough food in the coming seasons.[4] The war in Ukraine is tipping already fragile families into deeper states of hunger and malnutrition.

Global Food Crisis: At a Glance

• Global food supplies are expected to drop to a three-year low in 2022/2023.
• FAO has identified 24 countries as hunger hotspots, including 16 in Africa.
• Fertilizer affordability is the lowest since 2007/2008.
• Russian fertilizers aren’t the only short supply; China produces 30% of global phosphate supplies and has shrunk its exports by 50%to protect its domestic market.
• Lack of affordable fertilizer is lessening food production and hitting smallholder farmers the hardest, worsening already high local food prices.
• Harvest seasons are happening now in many regions, uncovering the true magnitude of food shortages.

Sources: https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/joint-statement-by-the-heads-of-fao-imf-world-bank-wfp-and-wto/en; https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/ukraine-fertilizer-food-security/

Harvest season is approaching.To prevent a worsening of the food and nutrition crisis, WFP and FAO urge countries to balance short-term urgent interventions with longer-term resilience efforts in their response.[5]

Among the most vulnerable are women and children.Despite being responsible for the majority of food sourcing and preparation, women are eating last and least. Without proper nutrition, mothers can die during pregnancy or experience stillbirths. For the children who do survive, malnutrition can cause permanent, widespread damage to their growth and development, particularly during their first five years when their brains are developing most rapidly.

Not investing in healthy women puts future generations—both boys and girls—at risk of unhealthy lives and intergenerational malnutrition. These imbalances hurt entire communities because the cycle is perpetual—people living in poverty are more susceptible to malnutrition, which can lead to increased healthcare costs, reduced productivity and limited ability to earn income. To reverse this outcome, CARE invests in breaking the cycle of malnutrition, and that starts with women and girls.

With your investment and partnership,CARE can respond to the millions of families nearing the brink of famine and empower communities to survive the shocks that threaten their access to adequate nutritious food.

Read the full report attached.

[1] This number is updated daily at: https://static.hungermapdata.org/insight-reports/latest/global-summary.pdf

[2] https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1116152?msclkid=a6509192cf9d11ec8a46224fc042ff3a

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/02/us/politics/russia-ukraine-food-crisis.html

[4] Despite some price declines, commodity prices can take 10 to 12 months to reach local markets according to the World Bank’s International Monetary Fund.

[5] https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/joint-statement-by-the-heads-of-fao-imf-world-bank-wfp-and-wto/en

• Global_Hunger_Crisis_Proposal_042023.pdf (PDF)
  

Links:

• https://www.care.org/news-and-stories/news/10-humanitarian-crises-that-didnt-make-headlines-in-2022/

• Most_UnderReported_Humanitarian_Crises_of_2022.pdf (PDF)
  

CARE supports thousands of refugees worldwide. We are responding to several crises, with Global Hunger at the forefront. Below is a snapshot of some of the countries we're supporting and attached is our Global Hunger Proposal - War in Ukraine Creates Deadly Shock Waves of Hunger.

YEMEN - Severe and Widespread Floods across Yemen bring more hardship to Tens of Thousands of Displaced Families

Thursday 18 August 2022 – At least 18 governorates across Yemen have seen the highest rainfall since July this year, with widespread destructive flash floods resulting in infrastructure, homes, food stock, and livestock being washed away. Nearly 30,000 families have been affected, and at least 91 people killed, a figure expected to rise, with many more injured or missing. The most hard-hit governorates have been Hajjah and Mahweet in the northwest and Marib in central Yemen. However, with torrential rains forecasted to continue till 20 August, casualties and destruction figures are expected to rise further throughout the country.

“The country has been grappling with the impact of over 7 years of conflict, resulting in one of the highest populations of internally displaced people in the world. It’s therefore devastating to witness families who have been making do with the bare minimum, who have been living in tents for years, struggling to access the most basic of services, now have what little they had left washed away and destroyed,” said Bushra Aldukhainah, Area Manager for CARE Yemen’s office in Hajjah. “Over the past days, we have mobilized our teams to respond to the most immediate needs of those affected. We have already provided 25 families with cash assistance and are preparing to assist 230 more families.”

CARE is working to distribute several rounds of cash assistance to at least 500 families in Marib over a six-month period, to enable them to retrieve their lives as a result of flood damages. Additionally, 400 families will receive a one-time cash assistance payment to help them to buy the essentials they need, pending further support.

PAKISTAN - One-third of the country is underwater

Unprecedented monsoon rains in Pakistan have swept away homes, crops and critical infrastructure. Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Zardari has noted that the monsoon rainfall so far this year is equivalent to three times the 30-year national average for the season. In his words, the result has been “an unbroken horizon of inundation.”[1] An estimated 33 million people have been affected throughout the country. The government of Pakistan has declared a national emergency, launching its own response and calling on the international community for support. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) reports that more than 1,100 people have died as a result of the floods, although that number is expected to increase, as many of the hardest-hit areas remain cut off from rescue and relief efforts due to landslides and flooding. The heavy rains have already damaged nearly 2,200 miles of roads and 162 bridges.

CARE has partnered with the Balochistan provincial government to conduct a rapid needs assessment and a rapid gender assessment to inform a just and effective strategy for our response. By following a two-phased approach, we aim to reach 526,250 people with life-saving assistance to meet both their urgent and longer-term needs.

For the first six months, we will provide emergency supplies to ensure that flood-affected families can meet their immediate needs. These supplies include temporary shelters and tarpaulins, hygiene kits, food baskets, child survival kits (including dried milk and high-calorie cookies), emergency latrine construction and the establishment of safe spaces for children and women. As CARE Pakistan Country Director, Adil Sheraz, said, “When disasters like this hit, we know from experience that women, girls and other marginalized groups face the biggest challenges to access humanitarian assistance.”  Conducting a rapid gender assessment and establishing safe spaces will help us to ensure the safety and dignity of all those we serve.

Following this initial response phase, CARE will support the recovery of flood-affected communities, helping families rebuild what they have lost. CARE will assist with rehabilitating or constructing permanent shelters, water systems and household latrines that have been damaged or destroyed by flooding. We will also work with local partners to rebuild important community structures, like schools and health facilities. To help farmers restore their livelihoods and ensure nutritious food availability for the rest of the community, CARE will also provide agricultural inputs, like seeds and tools, and poultry kits. Finally, cash transfers will empower families to make their own decisions about what they need most –food, construction materials or medicines.

CARE has been working in Pakistan since 2005 and has developed a number of strong working relationships with local partners throughout the years. Our teams are currently working closely with the provincial government and our local partner, Bright Star Development Society Balochistan (BSDSB),to launch an initial response in Quetta district to reach 2,250 people. Together with BSDSB, CARE is providing tents and constructing emergency latrines to serve 50 families. As more families are being forced from their homes, we will also provide temporary shelter materials, like tarpaulins, to 400 families. We have already begun distributing essential non-food items to 1,100 households, including cooking pots and pans, dishware, buckets and jerry cans to store water, mosquito nets and plastic mats. We will also distribute hygiene kits and menstrual hygiene kits, with essentials like soap and water purification tablets, to 2,250 people to ensure their health and dignity.

UKRAINE - More than 488,000 people reached by CARE and our partners across the region

August 24, marks six months after the escalation of conflict in Ukraine when millions of people fled violence to seek safety in the western part of the country and other European countries. Today, over 6.5 million people remain displaced alone in Ukraine, most of them are women and children.

CARE and our partners have directly helped more than 488,000 people – two-thirds women and girls – who have been affected by the conflict in Ukraine. To deliver this assistance, CARE is working with 56 implementing partners across the region. We are proud of our partnership approach, which enables us to reach the most vulnerable communities while providing significant resources and technical expertise to our partners. 

Within Ukraine, CARE and our partners aim to help 400,000 people nationwide, focusing on hard-to-reach communities with high numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs). We’re currently at 81% of this target, with 323,629 people reached since the start of the conflict. CARE currently works with 13 partners in Ukraine, including four women’s rights organizations. As a key strategy of our response in Ukraine and other countries in the region, CARE is building the capacity of our partners in areas including monitoring and evaluation, reporting and gender considerations in programming, to boost the impact of the support provided. Some highlights of our reach to date by sector:

Food security and livelihoods: Since the outset of the crisis, CARE has helped deliver food and other urgently needed items to people in Ukraine. Working with the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, we provided food (including canned goulash and tuna, pasta, cookies, cereal bars, baby food and fruit purees) in the eastern part of the country. As part of our cross-border programming, we worked with a Polish partner (Centrum Pomocy Humanitarnej My z Wami) to deliver food to 4,052 people in Ukraine and with ADRA Polska to deliver food, baby items and hygiene materials to 11,588 IDPs. To date, our food security and livelihood activities have reached 190,072 people. In addition, we have provided multi-purpose cash assistance to 6,703 people in Ukraine to help them meet their basic needs, including 6,106 people in Kremenchuk, Poltava, Kharkiv (Kharkov), Izyum, Dnipro, Zaporozhzhia, Lviv and surrounding areas, through our Polish partner, the Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM).  

GBV prevention and support: CARE has worked with the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Women’s Health and Family Planning to assist sexual and gender-based violence survivors by supporting health facilities with supplies and equipment, building local capacity to provide survivor-centered care, and conducting outreach to ensure survivors know where and how to access services. CARE also is working with Vostok-SOS to establish five safe spaces for women and girls. To date, CARE’s GBV prevention and protection services have reached 1,409 people.

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH):As part of our WASH program, CARE and our partners have distributed 36,220 family hygiene kits to displaced people across Ukraine. In areas where clean drinking water was not readily available, we provided bottled water to 6,000 people living in temporary shelters. Looking ahead, we are planning to distribute an additional 20,000 hygiene kits (with a focus on vulnerable populations, including the elderly, female-headed households and people with disabilities) and to provide bottled water delivery and water treatment system installation to 10 shelters, benefiting some 15,000 people. In total, our WASH activities have benefited 37,944 people inside Ukraine.

Health services: CARE has provided lifesaving healthcare, including medical equipment and medicines, through mobile services in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnytska, Rivnenska and Zaporiska in partnership with the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF). Together with our partners, CARE also is conducting a sexual and reproductive health (SRH) baseline assessment in Kyiv, Poltava, Kirovohrad and Odessa, including a health facility assessment, focus group discussions with women and girls, and an assessment of provider knowledge and attitudes to better understand current service gaps, opportunities and needs for programming in Ukraine. Through our partnership with Tvoya Opora, we have provided primary health services to 2,203 people in Kyiv’s clinical hospital No. 4. In total, CARE’s health program has reached 66,991 people inside Ukraine.

 AFGHANISTAN - June 2022 Earthquake

• The powerful earthquake that struck southeastern Afghanistan early on Wednesday has sadly killed more than 1000 people and injured thousands more. Countless homes have been reduced to rubble and so many have lost their livelihoods. We fear that the number of fatalities and injuries could rise in the coming days, as some of the affected communities are in remote, hard-to-reach areas.

• CARE deployed three mobile health units to the affected areas the day the earthquake struck. The teams comprise of a doctor, midwife and psychosocial and nutrition counsellors. Our medical teams are providing trauma first aid and lifesaving primary care as well as supporting district and regional hospitals. Head trauma and broken bones are among the most common injuries being treated and some of the injured are pregnant women, who face a very real risk of miscarriage. Our teams are currently managing to treat between 50-70 people per day, but more resources are urgently needed to scale-up assistance to even more people affected by the earthquake.

• Along with physical injuries, we are very worried about the immediate and longer-term psychological impacts of the earthquake on survivors who are processing the event and loss of loved ones. Providing them with mental health support, alongside other medical assistance, is crucial. Many of these people were already struggling to provide financially for their families due to soaring prices and inflation, and extreme levels of hunger, even before this latest crisis. 

• CARE is distributing basic relief items including solar lamps and providing flexible cash assistance to help those dealing with the impacts of the earthquake get back on their feet. Over the coming days, CARE aims to reach over 3,500 people with urgent humanitarian assistance. More funding is urgently needed to scale-up the response to reach tens of thousands more with medical assistance, temporary shelter, flexible cash assistance and basic relief items. 

[1]https://www.voanews.com/a/un-chief-says-flood-hit-pakistan-facing-monsoon-on-steroids-seeks-160-million-in-aid-/6722286.html

Links:

• Drought in Somalia
• Global Hunger by the Numbers
• Horn of Africa

• Global_Hunger_Crisis_Proposal__9072022.docx (DOCX)

To meet today’s complex needs, CARE continues to deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance while also adapting and scaling up our sustainable development programs across 102 countries. We know this approach works because we see the impact every day. Last year, CARE worked in 102 countries with 1,495 projects that directly reached more than 100 million people (71% women and girls), and indirectly improved the lives of nearly 160 million more people through policy changes and replication of successful programs by partners and governments. Our focus on promoting gender equality – and developing the skills of women smallholder farmers, unbanked women and frontline healthcare workers – has helped elevate the status of marginalized women, empowering them to become more valued partners and contributors to family and community success. By 2030, we aim to help 50 million people experience greater gender equality. To maximize the impact of our programs, we work with and though partners to scale up effective solutions and reduce poverty through policy change. Below are examples of how our work is making an impact.

This report outlines the following for refugees in CARE supported countries.

• Addressing urgent needs in ultra-challenging situations in Afghanistan
• Improving vaccination rates in Bangladesh
• Meeting the needs of refugees and migrants in Colombia
• Enabling poor families to have more in Syria and Malawi
• Innovating for the future in Zambia
• Helping people persevere through the pandemic
• Adapting to the impact of rapid glacier melt in Peru
• Restoring education

Please read attached report

• Philanthropic_Support_In_Action_5.25.22.docx (DOCX)

Links:

• From CARE's website