Washington, DC, 11 September 2023 – One of Africa’s landlocked countries, the Central African Republic (CAR) often seems to be forgotten in its troubled neighborhood. Nonetheless, it has seen humanitarian conditions improve in recent years, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (DSRSG) in CAR, Mohamed Ag Ayoya, said ahead of his visit to Washington, DC, last week.
He noted that sustained support for UN humanitarian work – notably by the United States, the largest donor to the UN’s humanitarian appeals – has made a notable difference, bringing the number of people in need down from about 80 per cent a decade ago, to 56 per cent in 2023. Mr. Ayoya comes to his post as DSRSG and the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for CAR after representing UNICEF in Afghanistan, Guinea, Somalia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Describing the situation in CAR at a at UN Headquarters, just before arriving to Washington, DC, DSRSG Ayoya said, “Its people are extremely resilient and there is a lot of potential for the country to get out of this cycle of crises it has been through for many years.”
The series of crises has contributed to the high rate of gender-based violence that plagues CAR: in the first half of 2023, more than 11,000 cases were reported. The nation also posts among the world’s worst rates of maternal mortality and deaths of children under the age of five.
Some 486,000 people are displaced internally by fighting – one in five of the nation’s six million people. Nearly 743,000 more are refugees in neighboring countries. Despite their own challenges of accommodating those in need, CAR’s people and Government also are generous, sheltering nearly 60,000 people who have fled fighting in Sudan and Chad, DSRSG Ayoya said.
Although humanitarian needs generally – and the scourge of gender-based violence in particular – have been a top priority for many donors, including the United States, UN initiatives to help victims stand out as one of the least-funded aspects of the UN’s humanitarian response plan. Pledges have reached just 36% of the total appeal of $534 million (which includes $63 million for Sudanese refugees) – and only 11% of the gender-based violence initiatives, he said.
The moment also seems ripe in going beyond humanitarian relief to invest in development, he added. Development funding can spur momentum, lessening the need for humanitarian relief even as it boosts families’ well-being.
Other critical concerns include:
- Nearly 40 percent are in the grip of acute food insecurity – 2.4 million people in all, with 600,000 of these facing emergency conditions.
- Climate change has exacerbated flooding: three times more people were affected in 2022 – approximately 100,000 people – as in 2021.
- In 2023, the number of people who need humanitarian assistance has swelled by 10 percent, to 3.4 million – even as funding has declined. Using the greater flexibility it was permitted in 2021 and 2022, the US Government had contributed nearly half of the total appeal. In 2023, it has pledged one quarter of the total that UN planners say is needed urgently.
The DSRSG’s visit to Washington included meetings with State Department, National Security Council and USAID officials, as well as the World Bank and civil society. In some of his meetings, he was accompanied by H.E. Ms. Virginie Baikoua, CAR’s Minister for Humanitarian Action.
Following his meeting with USAID on 7 September, DSRSG Ayoya : “Thank you once again to the American People for your continued support to the people of CAR. The US has been & remains the major donor for our humanitarian actions. This long term solidarity was reaffirmed today in a meeting with USAID teams in Washington DC.”
CAR has rich natural resources, including gold, diamonds, and timber, but its economy continues to stagnate for a second year, plagued by fuel shortages and climate shocks. One of the world’s poorest nations, with 71 percent of its 5.5 million people living on less than $2 per day, CAR ranks 188th of 191 nations on the UN Development Programme’s .
, the UN’s peacekeeping mission dispatched to CAR in 2014, has more than 18,000 peacekeepers deployed throughout the country. Heavily mined areas in the nation’s west hamper access, but peacekeepers escort humanitarian relief convoys, broadening humanitarians’ reach, DSRSG Ayoya said.
MINUSCA’s core mission is the protection of civilians; it also is tasked with supporting the nation’s political transition, facilitating humanitarian assistance, promoting and protecting human rights, supporting justice and the rule of law, and , and assisting in the nation’s disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and repatriation processes.
