[Translate to Français:] The humanitarian situation in Mali remains extremely fragile. In a context of structural weaknesses and chronic poverty, conflict and natural disasters are the main drivers of the humanitarian crisis in the country. Recurrent and successive shocks are preventing millions of vulnerable people from ensuring their food security and nutrition, and undermining their livelihoods. Throughout 2018, persistent insecurity and the effects of natural disasters led to forced displacement, resulting in limited access to basic social services and putting additional pressure on already limited resources, exacerbating vulnerabilities.

Concerning food security situation

Despite the expected average-to-good outcome of the 2018/19 agropastoral campaign, localized production declines will lead to an early depletion of stocks mainly for poor households. In 2018, floods, irregular rainfall and insecurity have affected production, particularly in central and northern Mali. The damage caused by the floods resulted in reduced cultivated areas and decreased production, limiting food availability. Flood- and drought-affected households across the country will continue to encounter difficulties to cover their food needs, with 404 930 people projected to be severely food insecure in June–August 2019 and 657 000 children suffering from acute malnutrition. Insecurity has also disrupted production channels, supply and markets, and led to large population displacements thus increasing vulnerable populations’ access to food.

Agricultural support to strengthen households’ resilience

Agriculture and livestock are the most important sectors for people’s livelihood. It is therefore crucial for FAO to provide essential inputs along with technical training to support vulnerable families that have lost their productive assets. In order to respond to both immediate needs of the population and structural vulnerabilities, FAO is ensuring complementarity of emergency response with livelihood support to strengthen communities’ resilience by improving access to productive assets and market linkages in order to ensure availability and access to food. FAO is working, as part of the Food Security Cluster, to strengthen local and national capacities in order to improve the monitoring of the situation, the preparation and the coordination of the response to socio-economic and climatic shocks. For 2019, FAO is appealing for USD 16.9 million to assist 570 000 people through livelihood support to improve their food security and nutrition, and quickly increase their resilience to future shocks, while mitigating the adoption of negative coping mechanisms.

Controlling transboundary animal diseases

FAO animal health is building capacity to prevent, detect and respond to disease threats. Activities are implemented by FAO’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) in Mali and 34 other countries. Many communities rely on animals for their livelihoods as well as their food security and nutrition. When diseases jump from animals to humans they can spread around the world in a matter of hours or days, posing a threat to global health security. FAO is working to reduce the impact of animal diseases on lives and livelihoods, and helping to stop emergence and spread of potential pandemics at source.