FAO aims to support more than 100 million people in 54 countries by the end of 2026, with a funding goal of $2.5 billion.

The agency is pushing for a more targeted and responsive approach, prioritising what matters most, sequencing interventions effectively, and centring efforts on the practical solutions farmers are calling for, in line with Members’ priorities.

Around 80 per cent of people facing acute food insecurity live in rural areas, relying on farming, herding, fishing or forestry.

Yet only five per cent of humanitarian food-sector funding supports agricultural livelihoods, a persistent imbalance that traps families in a cycle of crisis and dependence, the agency said.

With an emphasis on anticipatory action and rapid emergency agricultural assistance, FAO is seeking:
• $1.5 billion for life-saving emergency support to 60 million people, including seeds, tools, livestock health, livelihood recovery and cash assistance.
• $1 billion for resilience programmes reaching 43 million people, focusing on climate-smart agrifood solutions, water systems, markets and ecosystem restoration.
• $70 million for global services to strengthen data, early warning, anticipatory action and coordination across the humanitarian–development–peace nexus.

UN scales up life-saving aid for 120,000 displaced in Mozambique

The UN has increased life-saving assistance for 120,000 people displaced by escalating violence in Mozambique’s Nampula province.

Under the direction of Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher, $6 million has been allocated from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to support the response.

Violence that began in 2017 in Cabo Delgado has already displaced more than 1.3 million people. “The situation has sharply worsened since mid-November as conflict spreads,” said UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

Overcrowded and vulnerable

More than two-thirds of the 100,000 people who have fled in the past two weeks are sheltering in overcrowded schools, makeshift structures, open spaces or with already vulnerable host families, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

People lack adequate shelter and have limited access to safe water, healthcare, protection and sanitation services, while a cholera outbreak continues to spread, Mr. Dujarric added.

CERF funding will prioritise water, sanitation and hygiene services for people in the Erati and Memba districts, along with essential household items, shelter, protection and livelihood support.

Uganda’s upcoming elections marked by arrests and repression

At least 550 people, including members of Uganda’s main opposition party, have been arrested or detained ahead of January’s elections, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) reported on Wednesday.

OHCHR said heavily armed security forces have been deployed to areas where rallies of the National Unity Platform (NUP) are planned. Last week, officers reportedly used live ammunition in the eastern town of Iganga, killing at least one person and injuring at least three others.

“It is deeply regrettable that election campaigns have once again been marked by widespread arbitrary arrests, detentions and the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force against the opposition, as well as undue restriction of press freedom,” said UN human rights chief Volker Türk.

Opposition held in isolation

Reports of enforced disappearance and torture of NUP supporters have increased over the past year, OHCHR warned.

Security forces are accused of using unmarked minibuses known as “drones” to take people to unofficial detention sites or “safe houses”, where they are allegedly held incommunicado.

Earlier this year, the head of the military posted on X that he was holding the bodyguard of the NUP leader in his “basement”.

Following a public outcry, the bodyguard was later presented in court, visibly shaking and showing other signs of physical abuse.

Mr. Türk urged the authorities to investigate all allegations of ill-treatment fully and impartially.

OHCHR added that at least 32 journalists and media workers were assaulted or had their equipment confiscated by security personnel during a parliamentary by-election in March.

Speaking on the sidelines of a key international meeting in support of landmine action taking place at UN Geneva, experts in the field explained how shrinking resources in Afghanistan and Nigeria have exposed civilians to unexploded ordnance.

They stressed that mine action programmes, often viewed as long-term recovery initiatives, are in fact emergency humanitarian interventions that save lives.

Afghanistan’s child victims

According to the UN-partnered Landmine Monitor report, a staggering 77 per cent of all casualties in Afghanistan last year were children.

Some 54 people are killed there every month by the explosive remnants of war, giving the country the third highest explosive ordnance casualty rate in the world.

“It tends to be kids, mostly boys in the hills tending sheep and goats and they are picking up things of interest and playing with them or throwing stones at them and killing or injuring themselves,” explained Nick Pond, who heads mine action work at the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

Despite the urgent need for more deminers to make Afghanistan safe after decades of conflict, a lack of funding has meant that the UN-led team has “dropped and dropped”, Mr. Pond told journalists. “In 2011 there were 15,000 people working in demining, and now we’ve got about 1,300.”

Total recorded child casualties in Afghanistan since 1999 number 30,154 children, “so the work in Afghanistan is key to decreasing the [global] number of casualties”, said Christelle Loupforest, UNMAS Representative in Geneva.

She noted that although mine clearance work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Sudan has recently received better support, the situation in Afghanistan and Nigeria remains dire, with programmes facing imminent suspension without new donor commitments.

“It’s the same for our programme in Ethiopia,” she said.

Sudan’s growing dangers

The situation across Sudan is also deeply concerning for stretched landmine clearance teams who fear for the 1.5 million civilians who have returned to the capital, Khartoum, the initial epicentre of the ongoing conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Just five UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) clearance teams are at work in Sudan today and “all of them are in Khartoum, because the need is so big there”, explained Sediq Rashid, UNMAS chief in Sudan.

“Lots of accidents happened already and it’s very, very clear: unexploded ordnance is not different than Afghanistan or Syria or Nigeria.”

El Fasher latest

Summarising the situation in El Fasher, the city besieged for more than 500 days until recently overrun by RSF forces, Mr Rashid said that access remains extremely challenging. He noted that while civilians endured the siege, “the shelling never stopped” and even today “[it] is not completely stopped…there are reports of the presence of landmines as well, so it’s very concerning.”

Back in Khartoum, he said that teams have cleared the runway of the city’s main airport, “so we are hoping that at some point Khartoum Airport will become functional and that will make things much easier in terms of deploying the humanitarian aid workers to the area”.

Nigeria returnees at risk

In Nigeria, demining teams worry that displaced communities – with camps closing and nowhere else to go – risk returning to areas where lethal explosive remnants may be hidden from view.

A full 80 per cent of all civilian casualties have occurred in 11 of the 15 areas of return, said Edwin Faigmane, UNMAS chief in Nigeria.

In response, UNMAS has trained Nigerian security forces, police and civil defence workers on risk education in unstable and “hard-to-reach” areas.

The tactic has paid off, Mr Faigmane said, “as we have begun receiving reports back from the police or from community members saying that they found an item and that they’ve reported it to the village authorities or village leaders, who then reported on to the security and the military forces”.

Gazans still in extreme danger

In Gaza, UNMAS chief there Julius Van Der Walt noted that two years of intensive combat between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces had left an “absolutely immense” level of contamination.

This directly threatens civilians and obstructs essential support to the Strip’s 2.1 million residents by restricting humanitarian operations, slowing recovery efforts and making reconstruction extremely dangerous.

People are being injured “simply by collecting basic necessities on a day-to-day basis”, he said, while many families “have no choice” but to shelter in areas suspected of containing explosive ordnance. “Safer alternatives simply do not exist.”

UNMAS conducts an explosive hazard assessment of a logistics base in Rafah. The explosive ordnance that was found was marked with warning signs.

West Bank situation worsening

Turning to the West Bank, Mr. Van Der Walt pointed to the increasing risk of widespread explosive ordnance contamination in densely populated areas, refugee camps, urban centres and rural areas. “Communities are being forced to live side by side with deadly remnants of war,” he said.

The UN Secretary-General’s campaign on mine action launched on 16 June 2025 to insist that the norms of humanitarian disarmament are upheld – and to accelerate mine action in support of human rights and national development.

The campaign is a call to action to strengthen international disarmament efforts, and protect civilians – in particular children who made up 46 per cent of casualties in 2024 – from the impact of explosive ordnance.