Still ‘serious’ to ‘alarming’ hunger in 52 countries

DESPITE progress in reducing hunger worldwide, hunger levels in 52 of 117 countries in the 2015 Global Hunger Index remain “serious” (44 countries) or “alarming” (eight countries).

The Central African Republic, Chad and Zambia had the highest hunger levels in the report, which was released yesterday by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Welthungerhilfe, and Concern Worldwide.

Conflicts can be strongly associated with severe hunger, according to the report, which focused on armed conflict and the challenge of hunger. The countries with the highest and worst index scores tend to be those engaged in or recently emerged from war.

The two worst-scoring countries both experienced violent conflict and political instability in recent years. In contrast, in Angola, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, hunger levels have fallen substantially since the end of the civil wars of the 1990s and 2000s.

The report outlined some bright spots in the fight to end world hunger. The level of hunger in developing countries has fallen by 27% since 2000 and 17 countries reduced their hunger scores by at least half since 2000.

Among those countries are Azerbaijan, Brazil, Croatia, Mongolia, Peru and Venezuela. Some of the world’s poorest countries could not be included in the report owing to unavailable data. As a result, the picture of global hunger may be worse than reported here.

Global hunger is a continuing challenge, with one in nine people worldwide chronically undernourished and more than a quarter of children too short for their age owing to nutritional deficiencies.

Nearly half of all child deaths under age 5 are because of malnutrition, which claims the lives of about 3.1 million children a year.

This year’s report sheds light on an unheralded achievement of the past 50 years. “Calamitous famines,” those that kill more than a million people, seem to have vanished.

“War and conquest have long been the drivers of mass starvation. Although humanitarian responses are far faster and more proficient than in the past, we still need to attend to the perils of armed conflict and inhumane policies generating severe hunger,” said Alex de Waal, the author of the report, the executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at Tufts University, Massachusetts, in the US.

“The world has enough food, enough logistics, enough knowledge to end severe hunger. Achieving that is a matter of political will only.”

Between 1870 and 2014, 106 instances of famine and mass starvation each killed 100 000 people or more. Despite a decrease in wars over recent decades, the number of violent conflicts and conflict-related deaths has recently increased from an all-time low in 2006.

“We are more confident today than ever before that we can end hunger, provided we do not rest on our accomplishments,” said Shenggen Fan, the director-general at the Policy Research Institute .

“We must keep pushing, keep partnering, and keep innovating until nutrient-rich foods become sustainably accessible, available, and used by everyone in order to reach their full potential.”

“More than 80% of those affected by armed conflict stay within their countries. They are the ones who suffer most from severe food insecurity,” said Welthungerhilfe president Barbel Dieckmann.

“We need to do more to support Kuwait Saudi Arabia Turkey Slovak Republic Romania Sierra Leone Timor-Leste Zambia Chad Central African Republic South Africa is 38 on the World Hunger Index. these people and their livelihoods.

“However, unless we address the

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restore root causes of armed conflict, the progress made in reducing hunger will not last.”

“Conflict is development in reverse. Without peace, ending poverty and hunger by 2030 will never be achieved.”

The time had come for the international community to make conflict prevention, mitigation and resolution a far higher political priority, said Concern chief executive Dominic MacSorley.

“Diplomatic muscle and political will are urgently needed in equal measure to prevent the appalling levels of poverty, suffering and horrific brutality that seem commonplace in too many of today’s conflicts,” said the Policy Research Institute.