• The agricultural campaign, planned under the auspices of the Food Security Cluster, has been launched to support crisis-hit farming families with seeds and tools distribution as well as emergency food rations to reduce the risk that desperate families will eat the seeds instead of planting them. Find FSC bulletin on the agricultural campaign here.
• Almost 90 percent of seeds procured are already pre-positioned in the provinces for NGOs to distribute to farmers.
• Over 11 500 out of nearly 80 000 targeted households have already received agricultural inputs.
• Distributions will be on time for the planting season which stretches until June as per official agricultural calendar.
• Security is the main challenge to reach farming communities in northern provinces. A Map showing the level of food security by prefecture (IPC) and security risks has been produced and circulated.
• The IPC conclusions suggest that although the need for emergency humanitarian assistance has decreased in Bangui, it is still high in the rural areas. The provinces of Ouham and Ouham Pende remain the most food-insecure.

• Food partners have reached about 866,440 people under the emergency operation between January and April 2014. Food assistance has also been provided to 534,290 other food-insecure people, including refugees and displaced people in areas not directly affected by violence.
• Partners have distributions on-going in Old Fangak, Ganyel, Walgak to be followed by Lankien and Akobo. Teams are being prepared to be dispatched to Renk, Rom and Lul in the next ten days. 40,000 people to be supported in Leer.
• To date, partners have reached about 61,900 households (371,424 individuals) under the emergency livelihood operation in conflict-affected states.
• The IPC Analysis is being finalized, final figures will be released after validation with the Government.
• Constraints exist with the sensitivity of adequate storage space and quick-time delivery of livestock vaccination kits.
• Insecurity continues to hamper movement of humanitarian actors.
• IRNA missions conducted in for Jiech as well as in Pibor and IRNA assessment on going in New Fangak.
• Logistics/movement of seeds and tools is proving to be a challenge for some partners in Jonglei. FSL Cluster is facilitating discussions with the Logistics Cluster to urgently support air transport.
• Reports from Eastern Equatoria indicate that partners have already started distributing seeds and tools to beneficiary households – in addition to ongoing operations.
• Partner presence on the ground is slowly increasing. Livelihood inputs have not been delivered to Upper Nile State.

• The humanitarian community in the DRC has identified four major current crises in the following areas: Masisi (North Kivu); South Irumu (Eastern Province); Shabunda (South Kivu) and Katanga ("Triangle of Death"). Provincial Clusters have developed response plans for this purpose. Food security gaps are estimated at approximately 13M USD (9M USD for food assistance and 4M USD for agricultural support, currently being reviewed by the Humanitarian Country Team).
• As of May 2014, the number of economic migrants (expelled or returnees) from the Congo-Brazzaville amounted to 117,506 people. The transit site Maluku (located 90 km from downtown Kinshasa) held approximately 2,000 people. On Friday 16 May, the Government distributed food kits and some money to families in order to meet their food needs prior to the humanitarian distributions planned for the week of 19 May.  These distributions are carried out mainly by CARITAS and CARE International, both Food Security Cluster partners.

• FAO and IFRC, with other partners, jointly organized a side event on ‘Nutrition as an input and an outcome of Resilience’ at the 2020 Conference on “Building Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security” in Addis-Ababa on 15 May.The side event provided policy guidance as well as suggested concrete actions that can be taken to strengthen resilience alongside addressing the root causes of malnutrition. Please click on these links for more details regarding the program and the side event.
• “Strengthening the Links between Resilience and Nutrition: A Proposed Approach” has been prepared for the above-mentioned conference. The document is available on the conference website. This brief builds on a longer paper that has been developed by FAO Nutrition and Resilience teams to promote some of the reflections on this topic from a food and agriculture perspective. For more information, please visit: Food Security Capacity Building project.
• The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in collaboration with DARA, has launched its 2014 Flagship Policy Report "Saving Lives Today and Tomorrow: Managing the Risk of Humanitarian Crises". The report calls for aid groups and donors to begin the shift away from responding to crises in a purely reactive manner and to instead adopt an approach that proactively anticipates and prevents crisis through effective risk management.

• FAO is recruiting a Field Operations Officer in Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou) and the Central African Republic (Bangui). Fore more information, please visit the FAO website. The deadline for applications is 1 June, 2014.

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