Climate Wire | LONDON—More than 250 million people faced severe hunger last year, with people in seven countries at risk of starvation, according to a United Nations-led report released Wednesday.
The effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine, including soaring food prices, are a major contributor to hunger, especially in the world’s poorest countries, which have yet to recover from the economic shock caused by Covid-19. was another important factor, along with climate change and extreme weather.
Nearly 258 million people in 58 countries or territories face severe food insecurity at critical or severe levels in 2022, up sharply from 193 million in 2021, according to the report. doing.
The number of people in urgent need of food aid rose for the fourth year in a row last year, according to the World Report on the Food Crisis, released Wednesday by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Program and the World Bank. , the European Union, the United States, and members of the Global Network Against Food Crisis.
“The latest figures on the severe food insecurity situation globally paint a very disturbing picture. ‘, said Rein Paulsen, Director of FAO’s Emergency and Resilience Department.
Acute food insecurity is hunger that threatens to put people’s livelihoods and livelihoods in imminent danger, leading to famine and widespread death.
Some 376,000 people face ‘catastrophic’ food insecurity in seven countries: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. the report says.
Conflict is the leading cause of hunger in 19 countries, weather and extreme climates are the leading cause of severe food insecurity for 57 million people in 12 countries, and devastating floods destroyed crops last year in 12 countries, including Pakistan. destroyed and millions of people lost their food.
war and plague
But the biggest contributors to last year’s rise in food insecurity were the economic shocks in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the residual impact of Covid-19. was a major factor in severe hunger targeting
In February 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower products, disrupted global trade in these products and fertilizers, sending food prices skyrocketing.
Price pressures have eased since a deal was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July that would allow Ukraine’s grain exports to safely bypass Russia’s blockade on the Black Sea. It continues to have an indirect impact on food security, especially in poor countries that rely on imports, the report warns.
Russia has also threatened to abandon the Black Sea grain trade when an extension agreed in March expires on May 18.
According to Paulsen, the report is a wake-up call. It is “very important as it informs decision makers, donors, and informs governing bodies and governments about the need for urgent action, escalated action and the appropriate kind of action to address the situation.” he said.
What is needed is a shift from airborne food aid to agricultural interventions that have “proven to be the most cost-effective means of addressing acute food insecurity,” Poulsen added.
“Globally, in the contexts covered in this report, only 4% of all funding spent on food security interventions in food crisis situations is spent on time-sensitive agricultural interventions. I know something,” he said. “If we want to move the needle on the downward trend in existing numbers, we need to change this.”
This story was first published in POLITICO Europe.
Reprinted from E&E News with permission of POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2023. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environmental professionals.
