Since the beginning of the pandemic crisis, world poverty has worsened and the level of food insecurity has risen significantly, creating new epicenters of hunger.
The three deadly Cs, accelerating world hunger
Data collected by Oxfam(Oxford Committee for Famine Relief) in its July 9, 2021 report‘The Hunger Virus Multiplies’ (1) notes that:
– In the past year, the number of those living in famine conditions has increased sixfold to 521,814 people distributed among Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen (2);
– An additional 20 million people reached extreme levels of food insecurity this year, bringing the total to 155 million individuals spread across 55 countries;
– every minute 11 people are at risk of dying from acute starvation, almost double the casualties caused by Covid 19, which kills 7 people per minute (3).
According to Oxfam, three factors have contributed to accelerating the advance of world hunger: the ongoing Conflicts, the Economic Consequences resulting from the pandemic, and, last but not least, the exacerbation of the Climate Crisis.
‘We are facing the perfect storm in which wars, pandemics and climate chaos are squeezing helpless populations in a grip that leaves no way out,‘ says Francesco Petrelli, policy advisor for food security at Oxfam Italy.
C for conflicts
Since the advent of the pandemic, conflicts have been the major contributors to global hunger.
In fact, two out of three people, nearly 100 million in 23 countries, live in conflict areas where food insecurity has reached critical or more than critical levels (4).
Globally there is a record 48 million people displaced by war and violence (5). Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria and Yemen, i.e., some of the world’s worst hunger hotspots, are all war-torn countries (6).
Where conflicts persist, agriculture and other economic activities that are a source of food and income for communities are disrupted, due to mass displacement of local people, who abandon their lands to flee to refugee camps. Thus livelihoods are diminished and serious food crises deflate.
The forgotten people of Yemen
In Yemen, more than 6 1/2 years after the start of the conflict, which has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, more than half the population is now at risk of starvation, and more than 47,000 people are expected to be living in famine conditions by the end of 2021.
War, blockade on imports of essential goods and rising fuel prices have led to the doubling of basic food prices since 2016 (7). About 70 percent of the population is in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. More than one million pregnant and lactating women and 2.3 million children under the age of 5 suffer from acute malnutrition. Of these children, 400,000 are at risk of death from malnutrition and more than 86 percent are anemic.
Women and girls are most affected by conflict and hunger. Normally they are the ones who face serious dangers in obtaining food, but too often they eat last and eat less than humans. Conflict and displacement have also forced women to leave their jobs or miss the planting season (8).
From Tigray to the Sahel
In the Ethiopian region of Tigray between May and June 2021, more than 350,000 people were reported to be in famine conditions. More than 74 percent of the population of Tigray and surrounding areas are facing critical or more than critical levels of acute hunger. (9)
In the Sahel region, in countries wracked by conflict and violence such as Burkina Faso, hunger tripled (+200%) between 2019 and 2020, dragging 2.1 million people into severe food insecurity. More than half of the population is without access to clean water, there are 4.2 million displaced people and more than 7 million people, including 5 million children under the age of 5, suffering from acute malnutrition.
South Sudan, 10 years after independence, is one of the world’s worst food crisis areas, with 82 percent of the population in extreme poverty and 60 percent (or 7.2 million people) at critical levels of hunger (10).
Central African Republic in flames
In the Central African Republic, as a result of violent conflict, nearly 340,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, including many farmers who have had to abandon their land or miss the planting season.
The main road between Bangui and Cameroon, along which about 80 percent of the country’s imported goods travel, has been closed due to attacks by armed groups, resulting in an unprecedented disruption of food supplies and humanitarian aid. The shortage of agricultural supplies has also caused a sharp decline in crops and livestock, decimating farmers’ incomes.
Hunger causes wars
In turn, rising food and commodity prices have triggered many of the current conflicts. In several contexts, such as in the Sahel, rising food prices, drought and competition for increasingly dry pastures have generated tensions among pastoralist populations, eventually escalating into full-blown local conflicts.
Hunger as a weapon of war
In many areas crossed by bloody conflicts, the warring parties have intentionally turned hunger into a weapon of war, depriving civilians of food and water, preventing humanitarian relief, bombing markets, burning crops and killing livestock.
The United Nations Security Council (United Nations Security Council – UNSC) in Resolution 2417 recognized a causal link between food insecurity and conflict and strongly condemned the use of hunger as a method of warfare, banning attacks against civilians and essential infrastructure needed to produce and distribute food,
Nevertheless, attacks and assaults on civilians, crops, livestock and water supplies continue on a large scale with total impunity.
C as Economic Consequences of Covid-19
The economic consequences of Covid-19 have been the second driving force behind the global hunger crisis.
The economic decline caused by the various lockdowns and closures of borders, businesses, and markets has worsened the situation of the most disadvantaged people, particularly women, displaced persons, and informal workers, and has led to a spike in the hunger curve.
According to projections, the number of people living in extreme poverty is estimated to reach 745 million by the end of 2021, an increase of 100 million since the beginning of the pandemic. (11)
Syria after 10 years of war
In Syria, the economic consequences of Covid-19, added to the effects of 10 years of war, led in just 12 months to a drastic devaluation of the local currency and a 313 percent increase in food basket prices. (12)
According to Oxfam, female-headed households are among the hardest hit by hunger, with significant reduction in food consumption and abolition of some meals. To cope, some families have had to resort to early marriages to secure their livelihoods.
Starving Brazilians
The food emergency has also affected middle-income countries such as Brazil and India, where the pandemic is playing a major role.
In Brazil, emergency measures taken to curb the spread of the virus have forced small businesses to close and more than half of the workers have been out of work. (13) The number of people affected by extreme poverty tripled from 4.5 percent to 12.8 percent, with about 20 million Brazilians reduced to hunger.
India, skipping even school meals
In India, a country already weakened by natural disasters and a lack of food, shelter and health facilities, the pandemic has exacerbated the state of poverty and unemployment, in which much of India’s population was already struggling.
A survey of 47,000 households in 15 Indian states found that since the beginning of the pandemic, the average Indian household has lost more than 60 percent of its income due to massive job cuts, especially in the informal sector. In April 2021 alone, nearly 8 million jobs were cut. (14)
More than 70 percent of people surveyed by Oxfam in 12 states said they could not buy enough food to feed themselves. School closures have also deprived 120 million children of their main meal.
Vaccination inequality increases hunger
Inequalities in access to and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines are slowing economic recovery, making it harder for millions of people around the world to break free from hunger and destitution.
In poor countries, the pandemic continues to destroy the lives and livelihoods of millions. Oxfam calculated that at current rates of administration, it would take low-income countries as long as 57 years to fully vaccinate their populations. (15)
Horn of Africa, 9 million internally displaced people
The virus threatens to condemn another 132 million people to malnutrition due to loss of jobs and thus income, as well as poor health. (16)
The situation is particularly dramatic in the Horn of Africa and neighboring countries. ‘Nearly 9 million internally displaced persons, 4.7 million refugees and asylum seekers, and hundreds of thousands of migrants are experiencing some of the worst impacts of the Covid-19′ pandemic, notes the new report ‘Life amidst a pandemic: Hunger, migration and displacement in the East and Horn of Africa‘ of International organization for migration (Iom) and WFP. (17)
“C” for Climate Change
The climate crisis is the third driver of global hunger this year. Nearly 400 weather-related disasters, including record-breaking storms and floods, have gradually increased in intensity affecting millions of people in Central America, Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa, whose communities were already suffering from the consequences of conflict and poverty caused by Covid-19. (18)
Frequent and intense extreme weather events increase food insecurity and malnutrition by destroying land, livestock, crops and food supplies. This intensifies conflicts due to scarce resources, which generate new humanitarian crises, migration phenomena and displacement of populations.
More cyclones, less food
In parts of eastern India affected last year by Cyclone Amphan, farmers lost their crops and fishermen lost their boats-their main sources of income.
A similar situation occurred in East Africa, where a larger number of stronger-than-normal cyclones contributed to unprecedented invasions of desert locusts. This has caused a major disruption in food supply chains, reducing food availability and accessibility for millions of people in the Horn of Africa and Yemen.
Desertification in the Sahel
The Sahel is the belt between the Sahara Desert in the north and the tropical forest in the south. It includes ten fragile countries: Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea.
In the area, the rise in temperature and the change in the rainy season, which is occurring due to global warming but also due to deforestation activity in recent decades, are producing a very intense phenomenon of desertification.
Fertile soils are being degraded and water resources are increasingly diminished. Consider, for example, that the surface area of Lake Chad since the 1960s has shrunk by as much as 17 times, due to the combined action of climate change and unsustainable water abstraction.
Hunger in the Central American ‘arid corridor’
Since the onset of the pandemic, repeated droughts added to the economic consequences of Covid-19 have created a dizzying spiral of hunger in the Central American ‘arid corridor,’ including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In these countries, nearly 8 million people are suffering from acute hunger in 2021 (an increase of 2.2 million from 201819 and of these, 1.7 million are at emergency levels).
In 2020, the Atlantic hurricane season for this region was record-breaking: 30 storms compared to only 18 in 2019. Just to name a few, storms Amanda and Cristóbal along with hurricanes Eta and Iota devastated crops and destroyed more than 200,000 hectares of staple foods and commercial crops in the four countries, including more than 10,000 hectares of coffee crops in Nicaragua and Honduras. In addition, lockdowns have restricted trade and agricultural activities, with devastating effects on incomes. An estimated 8.3 million jobs were lost in Central America in 2020 during the pandemic.
Only military spending improves
In the scenario described, while governments were faced with the need to find massive amounts of new resources to combat the coronavirus, global military spending increased by 2.7 percent.
That percentage is equivalent to $51 billion, or six and a half times the amount needed to meet the 2021 UN Humanitarian Appeal for Food Security: $7.9 billion. In some of the countries most battered by conflict and hunger, arms sales have soared. (20)
A global ceasefire is urgently needed
Curbing the spread of world hunger is still possible, according to Oxfam, which calls on the international community to take immediate action for a ‘global ceasefire’ and to take 7 urgent actions:
1) Provide emergency aid to save lives immediately, reaching those most affected directly.
2) Ensure humanitarian access in conflict zones. Where aid is blocked, the international community must take action to end the use of hunger as a weapon of war and hold those responsible accountable.
3) Work to ensure inclusive and sustainable peace. The warring parties must build an inclusive and sustainable peace that puts people’s security first and urgently addresses hunger in conflict countries, including marginalized groups such as youth, women and minorities in peace processes.
4) Promote more equitable, resilient and sustainable food systems. Governments and the private sector must increase investment in small-scale and agro-ecological food production, ensure that producers earn a fair income by establishing minimum producer prices and other support mechanisms, and guarantee workers a decent wage.
5) Promoting women’s leadership in defining anti Covid-19 strategies. Women must be given the opportunity to guide decisions about pandemic response and recovery plans, allowing them to help address the distortions in our current food system. Action is also needed to address the discrimination faced by women agricultural producers in terms of access to land, markets, information, credit, extension services and technology.
6) Support a free universal vaccine. G7 governments will need to commit to Covid vaccines becoming a global public good, accessible to all.
7) Take urgent action to address the climate crisis. Rich, polluting nations must drastically cut emissions, prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees, and help small-scale food producers adapt to climate change.
Getting out of the hunger crisis is possible. And despite this setback, recovery from the pandemic will necessarily have to be an opportunity for all governments to promote a more equitable and sustainable global economy and to eliminate all those key factors that fuel world hunger.
Elena Bosani
Notes
(1) https://www.oxfamitalia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IL-VIRUS-DELLA-FAME_Luglio-2021_IT_finale_9_7_2021.pdf
(2) As of June 14, 2021, the number of people in a catastrophic situation (IPC stage 5) was 521,814. At the end of 2019, when the pandemic broke out, this figure stood at 84,500: catastrophic hunger has thus increased by 517.5 percent. Sources: the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2021 and the most recent IPC analyses for Ethiopia (Tigray and Afar and Amhara areas), Madagascar (Grand Sud), South Sudan, and Yemen. For more information on IPC classification and the Catastrophe phase (IPC phase 5), see http://www.ipcinfo.org/famine-facts/
(3) According to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University, the average number of confirmed deaths from COVID-19 during the week of June 14-20, 2020, was 9,967, or 7 deaths per minute. Source: Data Archive
(4) GRFC 2021. p.22
(5) https://www.internal-displacement.org/global-report/grid2021/
(6) The Global Report On Food Crises 2021. p17
(7) http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/resources/resources-details/fr/c/1152951/
(8) https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-ipc-acute-malnutrition-analysis-january-2020-march-2021-issued-february2021 (p. 7) and GRFC report p. 254
(9) Ethiopia IPC data
(10)http://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/South_Sudan_Combined_IPC_Results_2020Oct_2021July.pdf
(11) World Bank, 2021, World Bank, Global Economic Prospects, June 2021. Washington, DC: The World Bank. outlook 2021 https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty
(12) World Food Program, Market Price Watch Bulletin.
(13) IBGE, National Household Sample Survey – Continuous PNAD, First Quarter 2021
(14) https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/1-1-million-job-losses-in-april-due-to-lockdownsunemployment-rate-jumps-to-8-cmie/articleshow/82600685.cms?from=mdr
(15) Oxfam release June 3, 2021;
(16) Harvard School of Public Health. Nutrition and Immunity;
(17) https://ronairobi.iom.int/publications/iom-wfp-joint-report-june-2021;
(18) https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/record-breaking-atlantic-hurricane-season-draws-to-end;
(19) https://www.wfp.org/news/battered-climate-shocks-and-bruised-economic-crisis-millions-more-central-america-face-hunger
(20) https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/fs_2103_at_2020_v2.pdf
Lawyer in Milan and Frankfurt am Main. An expert in family, juvenile and criminal law, she is now enrolled in a university master's programme in food law
