A USAID/OFDA staff member (foreground) meets with a men’s group in Chad while conducting a field visit to assess conditions during the 2012 food insecurity crisis.

Terry Wollen/USAID

Key Developments

USAID is responding to the complex emergency in the Lake Chad Basin region, including areas of Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 and in FY 2020 to date, the U.S. Government (USG) has provided more than $28.1 million—including more than $26 million from USAID and nearly $2 million from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration —to support the humanitarian response in Chad. The response in Chad is part of a larger response across the Lake Chad Basin, for which the USG has provided approximately $574 million in FY 2019–2020 humanitarian funding.

According to the UN, approximately 500,000 people require humanitarian assistance in Chad’s Lac Region—an area that hosts nearly  170,000 internally displaced persons and more than 12,800 Nigerian refugees.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network projects that conflict-affected populations in Lac will face Stressed—Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) 2—outcomes through September, with current and programmed humanitarian efforts preventing deterioration to Crisis levels of acute food insecurity across the region.. 

In response to acute needs, USAID non-governmental organization partners are supporting the delivery of essential health care,nutrition, and protection services, as well as other forms of emergency assistance, to internally displaced persons and host community members in Lac.. USAID is additionally funding the UN Humanitarian Air Service to provide air transportation and logistical support to humanitarian workers across Chad.

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Background

Attacks by Boko Haram in Lac, which began in January 2015, continue to prompt displacement—including population movement of Chadian returnees and refugees from neighboring Nigeria—and exacerbate food insecurity and other humanitarian needs. Deteriorating security conditions in the region have also impeded humanitarian response efforts. On December 17, 2019, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Jessica Davis Ba redeclared a disaster for FY 2020 due to the ongoing complex emergency in Chad.