5. Mauritania
Issues: Insurgency, Natural Disaster, Child Labor, Child Marriage
Extreme weather weighs heavily on the shoulders of this Sahara-adjacent nation, with droughts sucking agricultural lands dry and heavy flooding ruining the soil that crops rely on.
As a country that relies heavily on agriculture for sustenance, crop failure or loss has contributed to more than 1.1 million people relying on humanitarian aid for access to food as of 2023.
The country is also dealing with insurgency. As a result, displacement, food insecurity and poverty levels are rising. Women and children are deeply impacted.
According to CARE, around 12.5% of children between the ages of five and 14 are forced to work, and working conditions can include physical abuse.
Girls are also driven to drop out of school, with around 37% of them forced to marry before the age of 18.
6. Central African Republic (CAR)
Issues: Violence, Refugee Crisis, Gender Inequality, Gender-Based Violence
Roughly 3.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection from violence in the region.
It’s been over a decade of violence in the country. That’s 10 years of incessant armed conflict and uncertainty that have led to continuously increasing rates of displacement, food and fuel shortages, limited access to education, and violence against women.
The central African region has been plagued by fighting, which has directly affected the refugee crisis as the war in Sudan and regional conflicts in Chad have compounded the number of asylum seekers in the CAR.
The CAR also has some of the highest rates of gender inequality in the world, ranking 188th out of 191 countries for gender equality.
With CARE estimating that just 55% of children overall complete primary school, girls are the higher demographic for out of school children, only completing 3.8 years of school on average.
Gender-based violence is also a major issue, with one woman or girl experiencing violence roughly every 30 minutes in the nation.
7. Cameroon
Issues: Conflict, Food Insecurity
“When we fled, we had nothing. We slept under the open sky and the inhabitants of the village here helped us by giving us pots and blankets.
Behind us, everything was on fire. We ran to the river and jumped into canoes to save ourselves.”
These are the words of Linda, 45, who fled ongoing armed conflict in Cameroon with her five children to seek asylum in neighboring Chad.
One in every six people is in need of humanitarian aid in Cameroon, a country that has been drenched in armed violence from the north-west and south-west of the nation.
An estimated 3 million people are facing acute food insecurity, as a result of conflict- and climate-related factors, and CARE predicts that the number of people in need of emergency assistance could increase by 45% this year.
How Do Women and Girls Experience the Worst of War?
8. Burkina Faso
Issues: Extreme Poverty, Violence, Food Insecurity
Burkina Faso is experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis of its history — which, this close to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals deadline, is not what any country should be experiencing.
The country is one of the poorest in the world, with 8.8 million people living below the poverty line, and 4.7 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.
Ongoing regional conflict is mostly to blame, and has also led to the isolation of around 800,000 people from the rest of the country as they live in areas controlled by armed groups.
The climate emergency makes the crisis worse, as it tends to do, as unpredictable weather has negatively impacted agriculture for the over 80% of citizens who are dependent on farming for daily food.
This means that not only is access to food and water limited due to the violence, but when there is access to it, there’s not enough of it.
9. Uganda
Issues: Refugee Crisis, Food Insecurity, Maternal Mortality
This image is part of CARE Norway’s campaign to mark the international Menstrual Hygiene Day.
Several girls were interviewed about the challenges of menstruation in a refugee setting. One of them was Alice Mugeni.
Alice is pictured here carrying her son (Josiah Ninziza Sangwa) while at home.
Image: Hajarah Nalwadda/CARE Uganda
The small East African country hosts more refugees than any country on the African continent.
Uganda has openly welcomed swathes of asylum seekers since 2017 from neighboring countries including South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Burundi.
With limited resources such as food and water especially as the climate catastrophe threw floods, droughts, forest fires, and hailstorms Uganda’s way in 2023, directly impacting agriculture and food security pressure to provide shelter, health care, education, and nutrition for refugees and locals is increasing.
To add to this, limited access to health care as a result of a lack of investment in community health facilities overall, has contributed to high rates of maternal mortality.
Women and girls often lack sexual and reproductive health information and contraceptives, particularly adolescents.
10. Zimbabwe
Issues: Poverty, Food Insecurity, Droughts, Disease
Zimbabwe: 13-year-old Ellen is an orphan who spends hours every day collecting water for her household.
She misses her mother and wishes she could live with a family who looked after her better some women have offered to take her away, but her aunt insists she stays there and supports the household.
She misses out on school because her aunt cannot afford to pay the school fees.
The only water source in her village is a dirty river.
It takes her two hours to make the journey, but the water is contaminated and makes her sick, and it’s unsafe crocodiles live in the river, and older men there to pan for gold have been known to abuse young girls just like her.
U0She needs her community’s borehole rehabilitated by CARE as soon as possible.
Image: John Hewat/CARE International
Almost half of the population in Zimbabwe is affected by extreme poverty that is characterized by low incomes, climate and inflation linked food shortages, high inflation rates, and rising health care issues.
Agriculture is the country’s main source of income, however the climate emergency’s intense droughts, followed by heavy flooding, has impacted crops.
With 70% of the population dependent on rain-fed agriculture (meaning that rain is the only form of irrigation), their source of nutrition and income is destroyed when heavy rainfall overwhelms and damages crops.
The country is also experiencing an increase in waterborne diseases like typhoid and cholera.
This is caused by a lack of access to safe drinking water, which can be a result of extreme weather impacting access to safe, drinkable water.
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