A donation of 16 million US dollars from the Japanese government to
IOM will help the Organization counter some of the many impacts of
severe food insecurity on migrants and migration in the Horn, East
and Southern Africa.

Conflict, natural disasters, environmental degradation and
climate change, rising agricultural costs, food prices and food
shortages have all led to deepening food insecurity for millions of
poverty-stricken people across Africa in recent years.

For many, the food crisis has been a root cause for migration,
particularly to urban areas or abroad, while for others,
displacement caused by conflict, natural disasters or climate
change has led to extreme food insecurity. Women and children in
particular have been made more vulnerable to exploitation, abuse
and human trafficking through displacement, internal migration or
irregular migration to another country. 

The Japanese funding will target various activities in Sudan,
Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen and Mozambique to address
these multiple challenges.

In Sudan, 6.5 million dollars will be used in finding
environmentally sustainable solutions for internally displaced
(IDPs) and vulnerable populations made even more food insecure from
environmental degradation, climate variability, depleting resources
such as water, and conflict. Rapid environmental assessments for
community action plans will be carried out as a first step in
mapping and addressing livelihood vulnerabilities, identifying crop
seeds and tree varieties most suited for an area and avoiding
flashpoints over natural resources such as water between IDPs and
host communities and semi-nomadic pastoralists. About 160,000
people will be assisted through the programme.

Host communities along Kenya's borders with Sudan, Somalia,
Ethiopia and Uganda have witnessed large influxes of refugees and
migrants, affecting the livelihood of host communities while
pastoralists in the north-west of Kenya have been affected by slow
onset disaster due to drought and pasture loss. A subsequent
outflow of migrants from rural to urban areas has not only put
greater stress on destination towns and cities, but has also
increased people's vulnerability to human trafficking in the
desperate search for a job so as to put food on the table.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Kenyan
government, there are more than four million people in extreme food
insecurity due to rising food and non-food prices and the
post-election violence last year. Nearly 1.5 million people are
receiving direct food assistance.

IOM's programme in Kenya will help 3,000 crisis-affected
families and vulnerable communities through the re-establishment or
creation of livelihoods in food-starved communities and among
communities where there is little to no access to efforts to
stabilise the population. 

In Mozambique and Tanzania, IOM efforts will primarily target
human trafficking as a direct consequence of food insecurity. 
Young, unemployed women, particularly in rural areas and those
displaced by floods in Mozambique will be helped with agricultural
assistance and grants so they can provide for themselves. The focus
in Tanzania will be on preventing child-trafficking in rural areas
and in assisting child victims of trafficking, particularly those
who cannot be reunited with families. Food shortages and lack of
rain in rural areas largely made up of small-scale farming has
increased the risk of farmers giving their children away to people
in urban areas in order to have less mouths to feed and in the hope
that they will be well taken care of. But often, the children are
exposed to the risk of trafficking.

With food insecurity along with conflict a major reason as to
why tens of thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians risk their lives
each year with human smugglers in a bid to reach Yemen and beyond,
with many thousands dying en route and most subjected to abuse and
violence, IOM will work with partners and communities in Ethiopia
and Somalia to promote greater protection of migrants and
asylum-seekers.

For further information, please contact:

Jean Philippe Chauzy

IOM Geneva

Tel: + 41 22 717 9361 or + 41 79 285 4366

E-mail: "mailto:pchauzy@iom.int">pchauzy@iom.int 

or

Jemini Pandya

IOM Geneva

Tel: + 41 22 717 9486 or + 41 79 217 3374

E-mail: "mailto:jpandya@iom.int">jpandya@iom.int