Conflict, extreme weather, economic shocks, COVID-19, and the war in Ukraine are pushing millions of people across the world into poverty and hunger as food and fuel price spikes drive countries closer to instability, two United Nations agencies said Monday in a joint report.
The 'Hunger Hotspots' report issued by the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme issues a stark warning of multiple, looming food crises in dozens of nations, driven by conflict, climate shocks, the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, and massive public debt burdens.
The ripple effects of the war in Ukraine, which has pushed food and fuel prices to accelerate in many nations across the globe, the report warns.
The report calls for urgent humanitarian action in 20 rurally marginalised ‘hunger hotspots’ with fragile agrifood systems where hunger is expected to worsen from June-September 2022 to save lives and livelihoods, and prevent famine.
The war in Ukraine has exacerbated the already steadily rising food and energy prices worldwide, which are already affecting economic stability across all regions, according to the report.
The effects of Russia's more-than-three-month-old invasion of Ukraine are expected to be particularly acute in the 20 'hunger hotspots', where economic instability and spiralling food prices are coinciding with falling food production due to climate shocks such as recurrent droughts or flooding.
“We are deeply concerned about the combined impacts of overlapping crises jeopardising people’s ability to produce and access foods, pushing millions more into extreme levels of acute food insecurity,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu.
“We are in a race against time to help farmers in the most affected countries, including by rapidly increasing potential food production and boosting their resilience in the face of challenges”.
“We’re facing a perfect storm that is not just going to hurt the poorest of the poor - it’s also going to overwhelm millions of families who until now have just about kept their heads above water,” warned WFP Executive Director David Beasley.
Conditions now are much worse than during the Arab Spring in 2011 and 2007-2008 food price crisis, when 48 countries were rocked by political unrest, riots and protests, Beasley noted.
"We’ve already seen what’s happening in Indonesia, Pakistan, Peru, and Sri Lanka – that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We have solutions. But we need to act, and act fast,” Beaslely warned.
The world has entered a ‘new normal’ where droughts, flooding, hurricanes, and cyclones repeatedly decimate farming and livestock rearing, drive people from their and push millions to the brink in countries across the world, the report says.
An unprecedented drought in East Africa affecting Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya is leading to a fourth consecutive below-average rainfall season, while South Sudan will face its fourth consecutive year of large-scale flooding, which is likely to continue to drive people from their homes and devastate crops and livestock production, the report warns.
The report also sees above-average rains and a risk of localized flooding in the Sahel, a more intense hurricane season in the Caribbean, and below-average rains in Afghanistan – which is already reeling from multiple seasons of drought, violence and political upheaval.
Dire macroeconomic conditions in several countries – brought on by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and exacerbated by the recent upheaval in global food and energy markets - are causing dramatic income losses by the poorest communities and are straining the capacity of national governments to fund social safety nets, income-supporting measures, and the import of essential goods, warns the report
According to the report, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen remain at ‘highest alert’ as hotspots with catastrophic conditions, and Afghanistan and Somalia are new entries to this worrisome category since the last hotspots report released January.
These six countries all have parts of the population on the brink of catastrophe with up to 750,000 people facing starvation and death. A total 400,000 of these are in Ethiopia’s Tigray region – the highest number on record in one country since the famine in Somalia in 2011.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, the Sahel, the Sudan and Syria remain ‘of very high concern’ with deteriorating critical conditions, with Kenya a new entry to the list. Sri Lanka, West African coastal countries (Benin, Cabo Verde and Guinea), Ukraine and Zimbabwe have been added to the list of hotspots countries, joining Angola, Lebanon, Madagascar, and Mozambique, which continue to be hunger hotspots.
The report provides concrete recommendations on the priorities for immediate humanitarian action to save lives, prevent famine and protect livelihoods in specific countries, as well as preventative action, which the two UN agencies say they have worked together to scale up.
