The number of displaced people in the East African region stood at 11.4 million by end of September, a new situation analysis report shows.

According to the report, released by the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), at least 2.47 million people of the total displaced population are refugees, while another over 8.97 milion are Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and others severely affected by conflict.

This represents an increase of 1.4 million people.

Experts say it is a major humanitarian problem for regional governments with the charity office warning that funding for aid response is proving to be a challenge at a time of critical need.

"Out of the $4.44 billion requested for humanitarian response, only $2.54 billion had been received by December 2,” says the report.

The statistics are provided in the context of populations facing serious food insecurity situations.

‘265,000 Rwandans hungry’

The report says at least 12.8 million people in some 10 countries in the region , including Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, are actually facing severe food insecurity.

The report claims that in Rwanda, at least 265,000 citizens and 74,590 refugees are hungry in a country of about 11 million people.

However, numbers of the potentially hungry people in the country are not as alarming as those in other regional countries, the report adds.

In Kenya, for example, 1.5 million citizens and another 552,500 and 309,200 refugees and IDPs, respectively, are hungry.

In Burundi, 689,300 citizens, 78,940 IDPs and 49,800 refugees are hungry; in DR Congo, there are 2.7 million citizens and another 121,520 refugees who need food aid, while in Uganda 100,080 citizens, 405,300 refugees and 30,130 IDPs are also in need of food.

But South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia face the biggest food insecurity in the region with numbers in their millions.

In Sudan alone, 4.4 million citizens, 2.9 million IDPs and 256,800 refugees are facing severe food shortage, while in South Sudan, 1.5 million citizens, 1.4 million IDPs and over 200,000 refugees are hungry.

Ethiopia’s hungry citizens are 3.2 million people in addition to another 426,700 IDPs and 644,000 refugees who need food.

Rwanda’s efforts

Last month, the Ministry of Agriculture, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (Fao), launched a pilot programme, Sustainable Food and Agriculture (SFA), to promote food security in the country.

"In the last 20 years, we have seen substantial progress, especially in terms of agricultural and socio-economic development,” said Attaher Maiga, the Fao country representative.

Maiga said Fao’s plan in Rwanda is to integrate various agricultural production systems into a single approach, while also attending to principles that balance the socio-economic as well as environmental dimensions of sustainable food and agriculture.

Such a process would, according to Mark Davis, the Fao coordinator of the SFA approach pilot phase, accelerate the transition to more sustainable food and agriculture (crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture) systems at country-level.

Rwanda and Fao started working on sustainable food and agriculture in June after an assessment survey was undertaken to identify issues, projects and policies as well as strategies that can be applied in the country.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Innocent Musabyimana, said agriculture is facing an unprecedented confluence of pressures, including population explosion which has put a strain on the available land.

Food insecure areas

According to a comprehensive food security and vulnerability analysis and nutrition survey released by the World Food Program in Rwanda, in December 2012, households living in rural areas are more likely to have poor food consumption and malnourished children than their counterparts in urban areas.

Rwanda’s population is predominantly rural, with 80 per cent of households living in rural areas, 11 per cent in urban villages and 9 per cent in semi-urban villages, the report says.

Road connectivity plays a major role in improving food access with experts noting that while Rwanda’s road infrastructure is far better than their counterparts’ in the region, households living a distance from the main roads and from services such as a market are more likely to have a lower food consumption score.

Hope

Moving forward, however, the UN expressed optimism in its new analysis, noting that most parts of the region have received adequate rain except for the arid, semi-arid lands and that excessive rain and flooding is expected to replenish water resources.

The UN, however, warned that this ray of hope could be tapered by concerns over possible crop losses as a result of floods.

"The humanitarian community is, therefore, appealing for urgent support to kick start 2015 operations and scale-up the response to meet the increasing needs of the affected populations,” the report says.