Episode 28: Kinda Samba: Hunger, Power, and the Politics of Food in the Sahel
© World Food Program
In this episode, we tackle one of the world’s most food-insecure regions, the Sahel. We speak with Kinday Samba, Regional Director for West and Central Africa at the UN World Food Programme, whose work spans more than 30 years across some of the most complex humanitarian contexts in the world.
From her early training as a nutritionist in The Gambia to leading operations across a region where 55 million people face acute hunger, Kinday offers a rare, ground-level perspective on how conflict, climate change, and political instability converge to shape food systems.
We explore how war translates into malnutrition, what “no access” really looks like in practice, and the difficult trade-offs required when funding falls short. Kinday speaks candidly about the tension between emergency response and long-term resilience, and how her background in nutrition continues to shape the way she leads.
While this crisis may feel distant, its consequences are not. Women and children are disproportionately affected, families are forced into impossible choices, and as food systems collapse, instability spreads beyond borders, fueling displacement, trafficking, and conflict.
This is a conversation about food as survival, as power, and as a fragile foundation for global stability.
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Vulnerability and Food Insecurity in Burkina Faso
Integrated Resilience in the Sahel
Violent Extremism in the Sahel