UN says food insecurity has reached critical levels in Arab world

Food insecurity in Arab countries, made worse by recent global crises including the Russia-Ukraine war and Covid-19, has caused critical levels of hunger and malnutrition, a UN report said.

At an event in Cairo, the UN, through its international agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Health Organisation and Unicef, launched its annual overview of food security in Arab countries.

It found that 53.9 million people faced food insecurity in the Arab region in 2021, a 55 per cent increase compared with 2010, and a rise of five million people from the previous year.

Moderate to severe food insecurity has also been rising, the report said. It affected 154.3 million people in 2021, which is 11.6 million people more than 2020.

This year’s report also found that half of everyone living in the Arab world, 162.7 million people, could not afford a “healthy diet” in 2020.

Since 2017, food prices have increased steadily to reach unprecedented levels towards the end of last year.

The report found that one in five Arab children under the age of five suffers from stunted growth.

The rate of stunted growth in the Arab world remains lower than the global average, the report said. But the rate of wasting, which is characterised by a low body weight for a person’s height, among Arab children is 7.8 per cent – higher than the global average of 6.7 per cent.

Meanwhile, the rate of overweight children has steadily increased to reach 10.7 per cent in 2020.

In addition, 28.8 per cent of the region’s adults are obese, double the global average.

Global crises “have affected the Arab world disproportionately and aggravated food insecurity,” the report found.