Balochistan and Sindh are two of Pakistan’s provinces having the highest prevalence of food insecurity, malnutrition and poverty. In 2020, the population faced multiple shocks including high food prices, locust outbreaks, rains/flooding/snowfall/drought, all exacerbated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this IPC Acute Food Insecurity Analysis, ten rural districts of Balochistan and nine rural districts of Sindh were analysed.

In total, around 3.8 million people (26% of the population analysed) are estimated to be facing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above) in the current period of March to June 2021, corresponding to the end of the lean season and the beginning of the harvest season. These include around 2.8 million people (19% of the population analysed) in IPC Phase 3 (Crisis) and almost 1 million people (7% of the population analysed) in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency) across the nineteen districts analysed. At least 5% of the population analysed in all the districts is in Phase 4 in both Balochistan and Sindh, while between 20% to 35% in Balochistan and between 15% and 30% in Sindh are in IPC Phase 3 or 4.

When comparing with the previous IPC Acute Food Insecurity analysis of Balochistan and Sindh, which took place in 2019, the situation appears to have improved substantially, in both magnitude and severity. However, food insecurity remains high, and urgent action is required to protect livelihoods and reduce food consumption gaps of people in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) and save lives and livelihoods of people in Emergency (IPC Phase 4).

Humanitarian Assistance: Improve access to food through appropriate modalities such as cash and voucher assistance aimed at reducing food consumption gaps for populations classified in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and Crisis (IPC Phase 3).

Livelihood Support: Ensure timely provision of quality seeds for high-yielding crops and vegetables and toolkits, especially to subsistence level farmers. In drought-prone areas, drought-resilient crop varieties should be introduced to ensure sufficient production. Support livelihood diversification activities for local communities to increase income-generation and employment opportunities, including training on ‘online business opportunities and management’.

Livestock Programmes: Scale up livestock protection and management interventions such as vaccination campaigns to prevent diseases and provide access to multi-nutritional feed and pastures to help in preventing distress sales. Livestock programmes should target vulnerable households and women farmers.

Water Infrastructure: Construct and rehabilitate water infrastructure for agriculture and livestock such as tube-wells, water channels and reservoirs for better conservation and management. Resilient water infrastructure can help in reducing the impact of recurring floods and droughts.