The West and Central Africa (WCA) region faces immense humanitarian needs driven by conflict, instability, and climate change. In 2025, nearly 36 million people in the WCA Region are in need of humanitarian aid and 11.5 million are displaced1, with women and girls facing heightened risks like maternal mortality, gender-based violence (GBV), and limited access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services.

1 The Global Needs Overview 2025, Humanitarian Action, OCHA, 4 December 2024, available here. This figure excludes the 21.2 million
people in need and 6.3 million people displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is not a country covered within the scope
of UNFPA West and Central Africa Regional Office.

2 The United Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group, Trends in maternal mortality 2000 to 2020: estimates by WHO,
UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and UNDESA/Population Division, 23/02/2023, available here.

In 2023, it was estimated that half of the total global maternal deaths between 2000 and 2020 occurred in WCA with 125,215 maternal
deaths each year.2

To tackle this, UNFPA is working in partnership with Ministries of Health to strengthen health systems and midwifery workforces, including training midwives to respond to humanitarian crises to improve preparedness and response capacity.