The UN food relief agency has warned that the world is on the brink of a “hunger pandemic” and could face multiple famines of biblical proportions within few months if nations don't act now to avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade due to COVID-19, which continues to spread unabated. 

“While dealing with a COVID-19 pandemic, we are also on the brink of a hunger pandemic,” David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said at a virtual session of the UN Security Council on the ‘Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Protecting Civilians Affected by Conflict-Induced Hunger’.

“There are no famines yet. But I must warn you that if we don’t prepare and act now — to secure access, avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade — we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months,” he said.

Beasley said with COVID-19, the world not only faces a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe. 

Millions of civilians living in conflict-scarred nations, including many women and children, face being pushed to the brink of starvation, with the spectre of famine a very real and dangerous possibility, he noted. 

Beasley said 821 million people go to bed chronically hungry every night all over the world. 

The number of people facing acute food insecurity could nearly double this year to 265 million due to the economic fallout of COVID-19, 2020 Global Report on Food Crises said.

The impact of lost tourism revenues, falling remittances and travel and other restrictions linked to the coronavirus pandemic are expected to leave some 130 million people acutely hungry this year, adding to around 135 million already in that category.

World Food Programme

Assisting 86.7 million people in around 83 countries each year, the World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organisation saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience.

The WFP’s efforts focus on emergency assistance, relief and rehabilitation, development aid and special operations. Two-thirds of its work is in conflict-affected countries where people are three times more likely to be undernourished than those living in countries without conflict.

The WFP was introduced in 1961 after the 1960 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Conference, when George McGovern, director of the US Food for Peace Programmes, proposed establishing a multilateral food aid programme. The WFP was formally established in 1963 by the FAO and the UN General Assembly on a three-year experimental basis. In 1965, the programme was extended to a continuing basis.

The WFP is governed by a 36-member executive board. It works closely with its two Rome-based sister organisations, the FAO of the United Nations and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. 

Conflicts lead to food insecurity

Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Qu Dongyu, in the conference highlighted how the newly released 2020 Global Report on Food Crises report clearly links conflict and rising levels of acute food insecurity.

Against the backdrop of 135 million people in 55 countries experiencing acute food insecurity in 2019, nearly 60 per cent of whom lived in conflict or instability, Qu cited Yemen as the nation that is facing the world’s worst food and malnutrition crisis this year. The number of acutely food-insecure people in Yemen is “expected to exceed 17 million”, he said.

The FAO chief also drew a connection between livelihood interventions and peace processes, spelling out that “coherent actions are needed among humanitarian, development and peace actors to address the root causes of acute food insecurity”. 

Stressing that “the forecasts for food security in 2020 look bleak”, he underscored the importance of early warning and quick action to pre-empt food insecurity caused by conflicts.

While conflicts, extreme weather, desert locusts, economic shocks and now COVID-19, are likely to “push more people into acute food insecurity”, Qu said there is a ray of hope and “by closely monitoring the evolution of these shocks, we can rapidly intervene to mitigate their impacts”.

What is food insecurity?

Food insecurity refers to the lack of secure access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food for normal human growth and development and an active and healthy life. For people to be food secure, food must be both consistently available and accessible in sufficient quantities and diversity and households must be able to utilize (store, cook, prepare and share) the food in a way that has a positive nutritional impact. 

Acute food insecurity 

Acute food insecurity is any manifestation of food insecurity at a specific point in time of a severity that threatens lives, livelihoods or both, regardless of the causes, context or duration. These acute states are highly susceptible to change and can manifest in a population within a short amount of time, as a result of sudden changes or shocks that negatively impact on the determinants of food insecurity and malnutrition. 

Transitory food insecurity is a short-term or temporary inability to meet food consumption requirements related to sporadic crises, indicating a capacity to recover.

Chronic food insecurity

Chronic food Insecurity is a long-term or persistent inability to meet dietary energy requirements (lasting for a significant period of time during the year), FAO defines this as ‘undernourishment’.

People experiencing moderate food insecurity face uncertainties about their ability to obtain food and have been forced to reduce, at times during the year, the quality and/or quantity of food they consume due to lack of money or other resources. 

It thus refers to a lack of consistent access to food, which diminishes dietary quality, disrupts normal eating patterns, and can have negative consequences for nutrition, health and well-being. 

People facing severe food insecurity, on the other hand, have likely run out of food, experienced hunger and, at the most extreme, gone for days without eating, putting their health and well-being at grave risk.

Drivers of acute food insecurity

The drivers of acute food insecurity are often interlinked and mutually reinforcing, making it difficult to pinpoint the specific trigger or driver of each food crisis. 

Conflict/insecurity: This includes interstate conflicts, internal violence, regional or global instability, civil unrest or political crises leading to displacements.

Weather extremes: These include droughts, floods and the untimely start of rainy weather-related events can directly affect crops and/or livestock, cut off roads and prevent markets from being stocked. Poor harvests push up food prices and diminish agricultural employment opportunities, lowering income at a time when households are more market-reliant because of reduced food stocks.

Economic shocks: It can affect the food insecurity of households or individuals through various channels. Macroeconomic shocks, characterized by high inflation or hyperinflation, significant currency depreciation, worsening terms of trade, high unemployment rates and loss of income, a significant contraction in exports and a critical decrease in investments and other capital inflows tend to coincide with increases in acute food insecurity. 

Microeconomic shocks are characterized by rising food prices, lack of income sources and consequent reduction in purchasing.

Health shocks: Disease outbreaks (occurrence of disease cases in excess of normal expectancy) are usually caused by an infection, transmitted through person-to-person contact, animal-to-person contact, or from the environment or other media. 

Epidemics and pandemics can also affect the ability of people to carry on their activities and livelihoods and, in the worst cases when widespread, may also affect markets and supply chains.

Crop pests and animal diseases: Fall armyworms, desert locusts, etc can damage crops and may lead to severe production shortfalls. Peste des petits ruminants (PPR), foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), or Rift Valley fever (RVF) often affect livestock and pastoralists' livelihoods in food-crisis contexts.

Natural disasters (non-weather related): Disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions can lead to major property, infrastructure and/or environmental damage as well as loss of human life. 

Highlights of the report

In 2019, almost 135 million people in 55 countries or territories, or 16 percent of the total population analysed, were classified in crisis conditions or worse. This marks the highest number in the four years since the GRFC launched.

For the second year in a row, three conflict-affected countries – Yemen, Congo and Afghanistan – had the largest populations in crisis or worse, representing 32 per cent of the total population in food crises. 

Venezuela appeared as the world’s fourth largest food crisis with 9.3 million people acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance as new data became available in 2019.

Africa remained as the continent most affected by food crises, accounting for 54 per cent of the global total number of people in crisis or worse.

Conflict/insecurity was still the primary driver of food crises in 2019. The total number of people in crisis or worse living in conflict-driven food crises rose from 74 million in 21 countries in 2018 to more than 77 million people in 22 countries, in 2019. The majority of these people (40 million) lived in nine countries in Asia/the Middle East where protracted armed conflict and violence continued to be fuelled by political, social and economic grievances or geopolitical tensions. 

The growing intensity and severity of extreme weather events also contributed to the increased number of people in food crises in 2019 by comparison with 2018.

Globally, at least one in three children under 5 years are not receiving adequate nutrition for optimum growth and development. At least 340 million children under 5 years — around one in two children – suffer from 'hidden' hunger due to micronutrient deficiencies. 

In terms of numbers of acutely malnourished children, the situation was particularly concerning in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Congo, the Sudan, Afghanistan and Yemen, which accounted for nearly 20 million wasted (underweight) children, or 40 per cent of the global total. 

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