Guinea

The Situation

Located in West Africa, the Republic of Guinea is home to around 12 million people. Despite an abundance of natural resources—including iron ore, bauxite, diamonds, and gold—Guinea faces major socio-economic and political challenges.

Poverty and malnutrition rates are alarming, especially in rural areas. 55 percent of the country’s population live in poverty, 1.9 million people—or 17.5 percent—are food-insecure and 230,000 children under age five are moderately malnourished. A comprehensive nutrition survey, conducted by WFP in July 2015, indicated that the chronic malnutrition rate in Guinea is around 25.9 percent. The 2014 Ebola outbreak has made already vulnerable communities more insecure and continues to have an economic impact.

WFP's Work

WFP has been present in Guinea since 1964. WFP provides assistance to promote:

• Education through its school meals program.
• Nutrition for malnourished children aged 6 months to 59 months, pregnant and nursing women, people living with HIV and TB.
• Agricultural development with the purchase of locally-grown food used in school meals activities. To date, 900 tons of parboiled rice have been locally purchased in Forest Guinea.
• Support to severely food-insecure households, people discharged from health facilities after being treated from Ebola, Ebola contact cases and orphans.

WFP is also implementing a logistics special operation to provide logistics services and air transport to the Government of Guinea and the humanitarian community. This operation ensures capacity of rapid response to actual and future Ebola outbreaks in the country. In Guinea, humanitarian access to populations in need of assistance is hazardous and time-consuming due to poor road conditions. Travel by road is adversely affected by seasonal weather with numerous roads being closed during the rainy season. There are currently no commercial air service providers in the country. UNHAS remains the only option to access remote areas promptly.