Overview

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is currently experiencing one of the world’s worst hunger crises, with 42.5 million people, of the country’s total population of 105.9 million, experiencing insufficient food consumption. Of these, approximately 23.4 million people are acutely food insecure, including an estimated 4.5 million children who are acutely malnourished. The resurgence of armed conflict in the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu since 2022 has further exacerbated the situation, with 7.3 million people currently displaced across the country. Women and children are bearing the brunt of the crisis, with access to food and other critical resources severely limited and incidences of sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse surging in the affected areas.

Drivers and Causes

The hunger crisis in the DRC is fuelled by a myriad of factors, including environmental disasters, conflict, economic instability, and poor governance. Although the country possesses significant natural resources such as copper, cobalt, diamonds, and tin, the Congolese population does not benefit from the country’s natural wealth. The DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a score of 0.481 on the 2022 UNDP Human Development Index (HDI), placing it 180th out of 193 countries. Poverty is widespread, with an estimated 74.6 per cent of the population living on less than $2.15 a day in 2023, and much of the population struggles to access basic necessities such as electricity and safe and reliable drinking water.

One of the key factors driving hunger in the DRC is the occurrence of frequent natural disasters such as floods, drought, volcanic activity, and epidemics. In 2021, the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo forced at least 232,000 people to flee their homes in Goma and the surrounding areas as lava flows destroyed more than 3,500 houses and toxic volcanic gases threatened both people’s lives and the environment. Similarly, the flooding of the Congo River in January 2024 affected more than 1,8 million people, destroying thousands of houses, farmland, and critical infrastructure, such as health care, water, and sanitation facilities. While the DRC’s geographical location in the Congo Basin makes it prone to climate hazards, climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events in the country, with floods, droughts, and heat waves all expected to increase over the coming decades.

Alongside disasters, violent conflict is another significant cause of hunger in the DRC. Since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960, the DRC has experienced persistent conflict with political tensions and rivalries over natural resources fuelling violence between different national and ethnic groups. In 1996, Rwandan forces invaded the DRC (then known as Zaire) to root out Hutu rebel groups that had taken cover in the eastern parts of the country, leading to a regional war that pitted Rwanda and its allies along with foreign and domestic rebel groups against the Congolese government of Joseph Mobutu. In 1997, Mobutu was overthrown and replaced by the rebels’ political leader Laurent Kabila. Yet, tensions between Kabila and his allies, Rwanda and Uganda, soon began to mount, resulting in the Second Congo War of 1998. While the war officially ended in 2003, ethnic tensions persisted and continue to be a significant obstacle to long-term peace and development to this day. In 2022, violence escalated between the DRC’s armed forces (FARDC) and the Rwanda-backed M23 Tutsi-led rebels in the eastern DRC, resulting in the killing of several thousand civilians and the forcible displacement of hundreds of thousands more across the region. While exact data on the number of victims is difficult to ascertain, the United Nations estimates that, since 1996, approximately 6 million people have died as a result of war in the eastern DRC, making the conflict the deadliest event since World War II.

Impact

Almost thirty years of conflict, environmental disasters, and poor governance have created a humanitarian crisis of immense proportions in the DRC. The 2024 Global Hunger Index ranks the DRC 123rd out of 127 countries based on indicators of undernutrition, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality and rates the country’s food security situation as ‘serious’. Hunger is pervasive all across the country and the prevalence of insufficient food consumption is generally high or very high, with 22 of the DRC’s 26 provinces currently experiencing food insecurity levels at or above 30 per cent. This includes the provinces of North Kivu (4,2 million), South Kivu (3,7 million), Ituri (3,2 million), Kasaï-Central (2,9 million), Kinshasa (2,8 million), Kasaï (2,5 million), and Kasaï-Oriental (2,3 million), which together hold more than half of the DRC’s food-insecure population.

While food insecurity affects all segments of Congolese society, women and children have been particularly hard hit by the crisis and face a range of protection issues. In 2023, an estimated 2.8 million children under 5 years old and an estimated 2.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women were acutely malnourished, with women and children in the conflict-torn provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu the most affected. Malnutrition-related effects include weakened immunity to disease and infections, increased risk of pregnancy and childbirth complications, and stunted growth and developmental delays in children. In the DRC, child stunting is especially common, with 36 per cent of children under five estimated to be affected in 2024. The child wasting rate, while comparatively lower at an estimated 6.6 per cent, is also high, as is the child mortality rate, which at an estimated 7.6 per cent is almost three times the world’s average of 2.6 per cent.

Besides the immediate risk to health and wellbeing, food insecurity makes women and children susceptible to a number of secondary threats, including sexual and gender-based violence, exploitation, and abuse. With food in short supply, many Congolese women and girls are forced to exchange sex for food and water for themselves and their families, while others have to enter forced or arranged marriages to survive. Attacks on water and food-seeking women and girls are also frequent, with those uprooted by violence and conflict the most at risk. In the conflict-affected areas of the eastern DRC, incidences of physical and sexual violence against women and children are particularly high. With no safe shelter available, women and children in the displacement camps in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu are exposed to heightened risks of rape and abduction, while child recruitment by armed groups is also common. Although no exact data on the number of sexual offence and child recruitment victims exists, in 2022 over 80,000 cases of gender-based violence were reported in the DRC while at least 1,545 children were recruited and used by armed groups. The true number of victims, however, is likely to be far higher.

Recommendations and Implications

Relief efforts so far have focused on providing emergency food assistance, health care, and livelihood support to vulnerable populations and communities within the DRC and surrounding areas. In 2023, 6.9 million people out of a target of 10 million people were reached, but a lack of funding limits humanitarian actors’ response capacity. In 2023, the humanitarian funding gap for the DRC reached a record $1,311,860, or 58 per cent of the total budget required, with the figure for 2024 currently standing at 55 per cent. Additional help is especially needed in the eastern DRC, where a new clade of mpox is rapidly spreading and threatening the already precarious existence of people living in refugee camps. However, to carry out their work effectively and reach a greater number of people, humanitarian actors require greater financial assistance, both from donor governments and private contributions.

For those operating on the ground, personal safety has become a growing concern in recent years. In 2023, more than 217 security incidents involving humanitarian workers were recorded in the DRC, including almost 30 abductions, around 20 injuries, and at least 3 deaths. Since the beginning of 2024, this number has further increased, with more than 170 attacks on humanitarian workers reported in the first six months of the year alone. Most attacks are taking place in the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu, where fighting between government and armed opposition forces continues to rage despite the conclusion of a ceasefire agreement on July 30, 2024. 

In North Kivu, the security situation is particularly challenging. Since the beginning of the year, M23 forces have significantly expanded the territory under their control, most recently, in early August 2024, capturing the towns of Ishasha, Katwiguru, Kisharo, Nyamilima, and Nyakakoma and taking control of the southern and eastern shores of Lake Edouard and areas along the Ugandan border. Fighting between the M23, FARDC, and pro-government Wazalendo militias has also been reported in the Lubero and Rutshuru territories in recent weeks, killing at least 16 people. In Ituri, armed groups including the Islamic State-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO) remain active, launching recurrent attacks against civilians in the territories of Djugo, Irumu, and Mambasa. In South Kivu, the withdrawal of the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission (MONUSCO) in June 2024 has raised concerns about a potential security vacuum, especially given the M23’s recent advance into the region. In light of the rapidly changing security landscape, it is therefore vital that humanitarian organisations liaise with local stakeholders and secure timely insights on armed group activities and movements. If your organisation is interested in tailored, PRO BONO insights from London Politica’s Africa Desk, please contact us at externalrelations@londonpolitica.com.