Madagascar: malnutrition spikes in the wake of climate shocks

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis of January 2023 shows that more than a quarter of the population in the Vatovavy-Fitovinany and Atsimo-Atsinanana regions are currently experiencing acute food insecurity.  During active nutritional screening in November 2022, Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) found that nearly one in five children screened were suffering from moderate or severe malnutrition at the onset of the lean season. Doctors Without Borders is currently supporting 24 health facilities in hard-to-reach places, as well as treating patients for malnutrition in five health centres in Ikongo district where,  as of early January, a total of 2072 children under the age of five were being treated for severe acute malnutrition, nearly half were admitted to Doctors Without Borders nutritional programmes. This number is expected to rise over the coming months due to a lack of food combined with the peak malaria season.

Madagascar is one of the countries at most risk from climate change and faces extreme weather events at regular intervals. The southeast region was hit in early 2022 by two consecutive cyclones, Batsirai, on the 5th of February and Emnati, on the 22nd of February. They left a trail of destruction, uprooting trees and destroying crops, heavily affecting local agriculture. The majority of people in the area live off agriculture, mainly crops such as cloves, coffee, vanilla and bananas. With most of the crops destroyed, people lost both their food stocks and their sources of income. In the Vatovavy-Fitovinany and Atsimo-Atsinanana regions, almost the entire agricultural area has been affected including more than half of the food crop.