Conflicts force up global hunger levels
Launched by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), the Global Report on Food Crises 2018 has exposed the worrisome scale and magnitude of today’s crises.
UNITED NATIONS: Largely driven by conflict, the number of hungry people has dramatically increased around the world, reversing decades of progress, according to a new report.
Launched by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations ( FAO) and the World Food Programme ( WFP), the Global Report on Food Crises 2018 has exposed the worrisome scale and magnitude of today’s crises.
“It’s been a very difficult year,” FAO’s Senior Strategic Adviser and lead author of the report Luca Russo told IPS in response to the staggering figures.
The UN agencies found that almost 130 million people across 51 countries face severe food insecurity, an 11 per cent rise from the previous year.
Russo pointed out that insecurity has increasingly become the main driver of food insecurity, accounting for 60 per cent, or 74 million, of the global total.
If this population made up a country, it would be larger than the United Kingdom and France combined.
The report attributes the increase to new and intensified conflict in countries such as Myanmar, Nigeria and Yemen.
Russo expressed particular concern for the Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC) and South Sudan, both of which have become Africa’s largest humanitarian crises.
In the DRC, an escalation of violence and political clashes has left over 13 million Congolese in need of humanitarian aid, including 7.7 million who are severely food-insecure.
In 2017, the UN declared the DRC a level three humanitarian emergency—the highest possible classification on par with Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
The UN Security Council echoed Russo’s concern and highlighted the need to “address the presence of armed groups in the country” and called for “transparent, credible, and inclusive elections.”
While an international conference has been organised for April to mobilise funding for the DRC’s US$ 1.7 billion humanitarian appeal, South Sudan also continues to struggle with low humanitarian funding and a population at the brink of famine.
Both FAO and WFP warned that without sustained humanitarian assistance and access, more than seven million— almost twothirds of the population— could become severely food-insecure in the coming months while over 150,000 may be pushed over the line to famine.
“Unless these humanitarian gaps are addressed, we may have to declare again a famine in South Sudan,” Russo said.
So far, just eight per cent of the country’s 1.7 billion appeal has been funded.
However, while humanitarian aid can help save lives, Russo noted that such assistance won’t provide long-term solutions.
“Because of the fact that the conflicts continue, you have more and more people on the brink of famine…with humanitarian assistance, we are able to keep them alive but we are not able to provide sustainable solutions,” he said.
While the outlook for 2018 remains bleak, not all hope is lost.
Russo highlighted the importance of working along the humanitarian- development nexus in order to move beyond focusing on short-term assistance to addressing long-term issues which can help secure peace.