By Khulile Thwala
Conflicts, climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are reported to have made more than a quarter billion people suffer acute food insecurity last year in about 58 countries.
This is according to the recently published Global Report on Food Crises. Acute food insecurity is when a person’s inability to consume adequate food puts their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger.
In seven of the affected countries – Somalia, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen – people faced starvation and death.
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The Global Report on Food Crises is an alliance of humanitarian organisations founded by the U.N. and European Union.
While the increase last year was said to have been due in part to more populations being analysed, the report also found that the severity of the problem increased as well, “highlighting a concerning trend of a
deterioration.”
The report found that the number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent food aid — 258 million — had increased for the fourth consecutive year, a “stinging indictment of humanity’s failure” to implement U.N. goals to end world hunger, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said.
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Rein Paulsen, Director of Emergencies and Resilience for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, said an interplay of causes was driving hunger. These include conflicts, climate shocks, the impact of the
pandemic and the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine which has had an impact on the global trade in fertilisers, wheat, maize and sunflower oil.
The impact has been most acute in the poorest countries that are dependent on food imports. “Prices have increased (and) those countries have been adversely affected,” Paulsen said.