The report ‘State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020‘ – published on 13.7.20 by the United Nations Agencies FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), IFAD(International Fund for Agriculture Development), UNICEF(United Nations Children’s Fund), WFP(World Food Program) and WHO(World Health Organization)-refers, between the lines, to some 3 billion people afflicted by acute undernourishment and malnutrition in its various forms. Against the backdrop of examining other UN data, however, we see how hunger and misery affect at least 3.5 billion individuals.
Zero Hunger, the second of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in UN Agenda 2030, is getting further and further away. ‘Five years after the world pledged to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition, we are still far from achieving this goal by 2030‘.
Hunger and malnutrition, failure and numbers that don’t add up
The last three annual reports on food security and nutrition in the world have shown a dramatic reversal. After a decade of gradual decline, the prevalence of malnutrition (PoU, Prevalence of Undernourishment) has risen again. As seen in the 2018 and 2019 reports.
The malnutrition index (PoU) has been retroactively updated, ‘erasing’ 140 million hungry people from the statistical data. A clean sweep that appears aimed at disguising the disaster, and the failure of policies designed to mitigate it. In any case, the overall analysis of the reports published by the various UN Agencies and Special Rapporteurs allows us to outline an apocalyptic scenario dominated by social injustice.
The 2020 Food Security and Nutrition Report considers 746 million people to have experiencedsevere hunger(severe food insecurity) in 2019, according to the latest estimates. But press releases and other parts of the report itself refer to 690 million (8.9 percent of the global population). In each case, 10 million more than in the revised 2018 accounts, nearly 60 million more than in 2014. And if we add to this figure the 1.25 billion individuals afflicted with ‘moderate malnutrition’ – irregular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food – we reach 2 billion people.
Social injustice and poverty, the real data
UN Special Rapporteur to extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston, in his latest report 6.7.20, is far more blunt. (2) ‘Even before the pandemic, 3.4 billion people, nearly half the world, lived on less than US$5.50 a day.’
‘Over the past decade, the United Nations, world leaders and experts have been promoting a self-congratulatory message of imminent victory over poverty, but almost all of these accounts are based on the World Bank’s international poverty line [1,90 US$ al giorno] which is totally unfit for purpose (…).
The best evidence shows that this amount does not even cover the cost of food or housing in many countries. The decline in poverty it claims to show is largely due to rising incomes in a single country, China. And it obscures poverty among women and those often excluded from official surveys, such as migrant workers and refugees.’
Hunger from Covid-19
The socio-economic crisis caused by Covid-19-as FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu predicted last April-is causing a further worsening of global malnutrition. Undernutrition will claim infinitely more victims than the new coronavirus.
The fall in GDP, according to FAO et al, is estimated to range between 4.9 percent to 10 percent, in 2020. With an impact on food security of between 83 million to 132 million people. More likely is the prediction of Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston, who has since passed the baton to Olivier De Schutter (former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food).
‘COVID-19 is expected to push hundreds of millions into unemployment and poverty while increasing the number at risk of acute hunger by more than 250 million. But the international community’s abysmal record on fighting poverty, inequality, and disregard for human life far precedes this pandemic’ (Philip Alston, 6.7.20).
Obesity and malnutrition
The Global Syndemic-the global epidemic of the new Millennium, focused on in 2019 by The Lancet ‘s EAT Commission-is driven by three factors. Climate emergency, malnutrition and obesity.
Obesity and overweight-like other forms of malnutrition, of which they represent ‘the other side of the coin’-are characterized by deficiencies in nutrients (e.g., protein, dietary fiber, unsaturated fatty acids) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). And they are in turn the cause of diseases, chronic and serious, Non-Communicable Diseases(NCDs). Which represent the leading causes of mortality globally.
‘A healthy diet costs much more than US$1.90 a day, the figure established as the international ‘poverty line’. Even the cheapest healthy diet costs five times more than a high-starch diet. Nutrient-rich dairy products, fruits, vegetables and protein-rich foods (of plant and animal origin) are the most expensive food items globally’.
At least three and a half billion people, according to the UN Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty – three billion according to FAO et al. – Are unable to feed themselves properly due to poverty. In sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (> 57% of the population), as well as in the American and European continents. Growth retardation and rickets are thus associated with overweight and obesity as early as early childhood.
Junk food is often the only food accessible to those without money, in the West as well as in Low-Middle Income Countries (LMICs). Ultraprocessed foods with criminal nutritional profiles, the consumption of which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature mortality, as documented in scientific literature.
‘Adult obesity continues to rise, from 11.8 percent in 2012 to 13.1 percent in 2016, and is not on track to meet the global goal of halting the rise in adult obesity by 2025. If prevalence continues to increase by 2.6 percent per year, adult obesity will increase by 40 percent by 2025, compared to the 2012 level’.
Dario Dongo and Sabrina Bergamini
Notes
(1) FAO. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 http://www.fao.org/news/story/it/item/1297851/icode/
(2) Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (2020). The parlous state of poverty eradication, report https://chrgj.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Alston-Poverty-Report-FINAL.pdf
(3) The Lancet Commission on Obesity (2019). The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The Lancet Commission report. The Lancet http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(18)32822-8
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Journalist. Consumption, rights, nutrition, social, environment. Head of Consumers Help. She collaborated with ResetDOC, Il Riformista, La Nuova Ecologia, IMGPress.
