Key drivers of this crisis were economic shocks, conflicts & climate extremes
The number of people facing acute food insecurity in 58 countries and territories in 2022 — 258 million — was the highest in the seven-year history of the report. Representative photo: iStock. The number of people experiencing acute hunger and requiring urgent food, nutrition and livelihood assistance increased to 258 million in 2022 from 193 million in 2021, a 34 per cent jump in just one year, according to a new report.
Besides, people in seven countries were on the brink of starvation, found the Global Report on Food Crisis, produced by the Food Security Information Network. The report was launched on May 2, 2023, by the Global Network Against Food Crisis — an international alliance of the United Nations, the European Union and other agencies working to tackle food crises.
More than half of the people who were on the brink of starvation were in Somalia (57 per cent). At the same time, such extreme circumstances also occurred in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti (for the first time in the country’s history), Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.
The number of people facing acute food insecurity in 58 countries and territories in 2022 — 258 million — was the highest in the seven-year history of the report, signifying a deteriorating trend in global acute food insecurity.
Read more: UN Food Systems Summit: Sanctioning the status quo
In 2021, 193 million people in 53 countries and territories faced acute hunger. This means that the severity of the food crisis increased to 22.7 per cent in 2022 from 21.3 per cent in 2021. “However, much of this growth reflects an increase in the population analysed,” said the report.
Acute food insecurity is when a person’s inability to consume adequate food puts their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger.
Ending hunger and achieving food security and improved nutrition by 2030 is Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, called ‘zero hunger’. The report is a reminder of the world’s failure to progress towards that goal.
“More than a quarter of a billion people are now facing acute levels of hunger, and some are on the brink of starvation. That’s unconscionable,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in the report’s foreword.
The report also found that around 35 million people experienced emergency levels of acute hunger in 39 countries, with more than half of those located in just four countries — Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen.
Key drivers of this crisis were — economic shocks, conflict/insecurity and weather/climate extremes. Economic shocks (the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 and the repercussions of the war in Ukraine) have surpassed conflict as the primary driver of acute food insecurity and malnutrition in several major food crises.
“Cumulative global economic shocks, including soaring food prices and severe disruptions to markets, undermine countries’ resilience and capacity to respond to food shocks,” the report said.
It was the main driver in 27 countries, with the economic resilience of poor countries dramatically decreasing over the past three years. These countries have been facing extended recovery periods and are unable to cope with future shocks.
Also read: Climate shocks to drive 13.5 million people in Africa’s Sahel into poverty by 2050
Meanwhile, conflict/insecurity was the most significant driver in 19 countries/territories, particularly food import-dependent and low-income countries, whose fragile economic resilience had already been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The findings confirmed the adverse impact of the war in Ukraine on global food security. Ukraine and Russia were significant contributors to the global production and trade of fuel, agricultural inputs and essential food commodities, particularly wheat, maize and sunflower oil.
The war disrupted agricultural production and trade in the Black Sea region, triggering an unprecedented peak in international food prices in the first half of 2022. While food prices have since come down, also thanks to the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the European Union Solidarity Lanes, the war continues to affect food security indirectly.
Weather/climate extremes were the primary driver of acute food insecurity in 12 countries. These extremes included sustained drought in the Horn of Africa, devastating flooding in Pakistan, tropical storms, cyclones and drought in Southern Africa.
Additionally, in 30 of the 42 main food crises contexts analysed in the report, over 35 million children under five years of age suffered from wasting or acute malnutrition, with 9.2 million of them with severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of undernutrition and a major contributor to increased child mortality.
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