Home ›› 01 Jun 2022 ›› Opinion
Globally, levels of hunger remain alarmingly high. In 2021, they surpassed all previous records as reported by the Global Report on Food Crises, with close to 193 million people acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance across 53 countries or territories, according to the findings of the GRFC 2022. This represents an increase of nearly 40 million people compared to the previous high reached in 2020.
This increase must be interpreted with care, given that it can be attributed to both a worsening acute food insecurity situation and a substantial expansion in the population analysed between 2020 and 2021. However, even when considering the share of the analysed population in crisis or worse or equivalent, the proportion of the population in these phases has increased since 2020. When considering the results of the six editions of the GRFC, the number of people has risen by 80 per cent since 2016, when around 108 million people across 48 countries were acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance.
The alarmingly high incidence of acute food insecurity and malnutrition starkly exposes the fragility of global and local food systems that are under mounting strain from the increased frequency and severity of weather extremes, the Covid-19 pandemic, increasing conflict and insecurity and rising global food prices. The interconnectedness of drivers is further laid bare by the unfolding war in Ukraine, which not only compromises the food security of those directly affected by the war, but compounds existing challenges faced by millions of acutely food-insecure people worldwide.
Some countries facing food crises are particularly vulnerable to the risks to food markets created by the war in the Black Sea area. Notably due to their high dependency on imports of food, fuel and agricultural inputs and/or vulnerability to global food price shocks. While the international community has stepped up to calls for urgent famine mitigation action, global humanitarian and development funding for food crises is failing to match growing needs. While funding for humanitarian food assistance has been falling since 2017, the current shortfall is particularly stark due the Covid-19-induced economic slowdown and prioritization of the public health response to the pandemic.
The World Bank recently announced actions it plans to take as part of a comprehensive, global response to the ongoing food security crisis, with up to $30 billion in existing and new projects in areas such as agriculture, nutrition, social protection, water and irrigation. This financing will include efforts to encourage food and fertilizer production, enhance food systems, facilitate greater trade, and support vulnerable households and producers. “Food price increases are having devastating effects on the poorest and most vulnerable,” said World Bank Group President David Malpass.
World Bank’s existing portfolio includes undisbursed balances of $18.7 billion in projects with direct links to food and nutrition security issues, covering agriculture and natural resources, nutrition, social protection, and other sectors. Altogether, this would amount to over $30 billion available for implementation to address food insecurity over the next 15 months. This response will draw on the full range of World Bank financing instruments and be complemented by analytical work.
The World Bank gained extensive experience in response to the 2007-2008 global food price crises through the temporary Global Food Crisis Response Programme that received donor contributions and channeled funds to 49 affected countries through 100 projects. Since then, the Bank had built up new tools dedicated to responding to food security crises, including the IDA Crisis Response Window.
The World Bank also hosts the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme, which is an existing financial intermediary fund dedicated to improving food security in low-income countries and could be replenished to help fund the response to the current global food crisis. It is unsettling to hear from the United Nations (UN) that the effects of the ongoing global food crisis may last for years, unless actions are taken to overturn the situation. As the Russia-Ukraine war drags on and continues to push up prices, world leaders believe the situation can improve only with the conclusion of the war.
Bangladesh, as a developing nation, has already felt the heat from the global market, with the people struggling with skyrocketing prices of essentials. Addressing the situation, the UN secretary-general pointed to the reality that shortages of grains and fertilisers happened because of some perceivable factors, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising temperatures, and pandemic-driven supply problems. He expressed caution that, unless effective steps were taken now, tens of millions of people would face severe food insecurity. He stressed that without goodwill on all sides involved in the war, an amicable solution would be hard to reach. It can be noted that taking cognisance of the worsening food situation, the World Bank has announced an additional USD 12 billion in funding to stave off the “devastating effects” of a prolonged food crisis, which might lead to massive-scale malnutrition, mass hunger and famine in many of the countries where food shortage is already a pervasive phenomenon. Reports show that in many of the far-flung areas, people live in semi-starvation almost half the year. A prolonged food crisis would put the lives of these marginalised people in total jeopardy.
Experts fear if the depleting food stocks are not replenished soon, it would push the vulnerable communities towards the edge of famine.
Together, Russia and Ukraine produce 30 per cent of the world’s wheat. And the Ukraine invasion and subsequent economic sanctions on Russia have disrupted supplies of fertilisers, wheat and other commodities, thereby causing global prices of food and fuel to go up phenomenally. Before the invasion in February, Ukraine was exporting 4.5 million tonnes of agricultural produce per month through its ports12 per cent of the planet’s wheat, 15 per cent of its corn and half of its sunflower oil. To handle the rising inflation, many countries are now opting for austerity measures to stabilise their economies. Bangladesh, too, is doing what it can to offset the effects. We urge the world leaders to urgently find a solution to counter the threats and effects of a prolonged food crisis. The EU may decide in response to Britain’s provocation that EU food security is of paramount importance, directing food exports only to where there is more need than Britain for example, increasing its already hefty food support to Ukraine or just making haulage and shipping regulatory requirements even tougher. They can do so, secure that EU producers can sell their food elsewhere, so creating food shortages in Britain. If the EU does not wish to go so far, it has other effective levers to make Boris Johnson back down. Russia is the world’s biggest exporter of fertilisers, whose price has now soared 300 per cent following the West’s trade sanctions. It’s a pity that so many millions are going to find out the hardest way through eating crap food or, worse, going hungry just how wrong-headed their leaders have been.
The international community must mobilize the investments and political will needed to collectively address the causes and consequences of escalating food crises across humanitarian, development and peace perspectives. The urgency to do this will likely continue to grow in the coming months and years, driven by the direct and indirect effects of the war in Ukraine. The GRFC is a powerful guide for decision-makers in the international community. Though this report demonstrates that overall quality of data has improved, further work is needed to improve coverage, quality and timeliness of data collection and analysis. High quality and timely food security and nutrition data and information are vital in ensuring a situation analysis that identifies not only outcomes, but hunger’s main drivers, for a targeted and integrated response.
The writer is a researcher based in the UK. He can be contacted at rayhan.co.uk@yahoo.com
