CARE calls for urgent action against hunger and gender inequality crises in conflict zones

08 May 2024 --- The global woman and girls-focused humanitarian organization CARE is urging the international community for immediate action to alleviate the “hunger crisis” faced by people in active war zones. According to the recently released 2024 Global Report on Food Crises, 281 million people experienced high levels of acute food insecurity in 59 countries and territories in 2023, with the ongoing conflicts in Haiti, Gaza and Sudan exacerbating these figures.

“We’ve seen a real escalation in recent years in global hunger,” Elizabeth Courtney, humanitarian advocacy advisor at CARE, tells Nutrition Insight. “This is due both to global factors that are affecting people in very far-flung parts of the world, such as COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, but it can also be super localized — conflicts that are contained within a border of a specific country or within areas of countries.”

Courtney points out that according to the 2024 Global Report on Food Crises by the Global Network Against Food Crisis and the Food Security Information Network, the prevalence of hunger didn’t rise quite as much. “It’s more just that it’s plateauing at an unprecedented high level.”

“Gender inequality is another globalized factor that’s really driving the increase and persistence of hunger in many places around the world. The more gender unequal a country is, the more likely it is to be experiencing food insecurity. You’ll see many of the countries in the Global Report that have been on the report for every year of the eight-year history and these are countries that are gender unequal.”

CARE urges the global humanitarian community to systematically integrate gender analysis into their food insecurity assessments.Gender disparities
In response to the 2024 report, CARE urges the global humanitarian community, especially partners of the Inter-Phase Classification System and the Food Security Information Network, to “systematically” integrate gender analysis into their food insecurity assessments.

Elaborating on how actors with the power to make a difference, Courtney calls for funding for women-led organizations. ”But of course, when we say funding, we mean funding support that can last for more than one year and then can help build the institutional growth of these really vital women-led organizations that are the frontline responders to hunger.”

“Beyond funding, it goes to just better inclusion of women-led organizations in the humanitarian response, ensuring that they can be leaders in these spaces in order to actually reach women where they are.”

She further underlines the need for the mainstreaming of gender across humanitarian and development responses. “We need all organizations, regardless of whether it’s considered a women-focused organization, to be collecting sex and age-related data, so we can see the scope of the problem in front of us and so that women can stop being invisible.”

“It is a fact that we can’t successfully measure the differences in hunger between men and women, although all the data we do have tells us that women are hungrier.”

Courtney argues that “the truth about the hunger crisis” is that it goes beyond the food security sector. “Women face risks of gender-based violence, including sexual violence; they have special and unique nutritional needs that have to be addressed. They might have additional or different needs for livelihoods or shelter.”

“I prefer to call it a hunger crisis rather than a food crisis because the phrase ‘food crisis’ creates this false idea that there isn’t enough food in the world when there is, it’s just not always reaching the people who are most in need, as it is spread very unequally,” she explains.

According to her, if women-specific issues are not addressed, women will be held further back in the hunger crisis “because they’ll have to compromise in those aspects in order to secure their own nutrition or for that of their family.”

Spotlight on Gaza, Haiti and Sudan
The new report showcases that where conflict and insecurity present a serious impediment, it can be challenging for all people to meet their basic nutritional needs. Courtney states that in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, Haiti and Sudan, the situation is currently most concerning.

The majority or all of the people of Gaza, Haiti and Sudan are finding it challenging to meet their basic nutritional needs.“Armed actors might be disrupting markets or aspects of the supply chain; we’re currently seeing this with the intense escalations of conflicts in Sudan, Gaza and Haiti. Over time, such a reality will degrade the quality of infrastructure and the quality of the food system that a country has,” she explains. 

“We have to look at the short-term and long-term impacts. Sudan, Gaza and Haiti are experiencing drastic and dire conflict-induced hunger that needs to be urgently addressed with lasting ceasefire agreements and unimpeded humanitarian access to provide food assistance for those who are in some cases on the brink of famine.”

Discussing how global stakeholders are currently providing support to women and other vulnerable populations, Courtney asserts: “NGOs and international organizations like the World Food Program or FAO are working tirelessly around the clock to do all that they’re able to do in the current conditions to reach people who are suffering from food insecurity.”

“What these organizations need in order to prevent needs from escalating and improve the food insecurity situation of people is better humanitarian access. Political actors create pathways for aid and not impede humanitarian access. They should agree to a lasting ceasefire, so we can reach people, and  uphold their commitments to international humanitarian law.”

Continued funding challenges 
For relevant players to address the gender-based nutrition challenges highlighted by the organization, Courtney elaborates on the importance of funding and the sustained difficulties in securing humanitarian aid since the global economic downturn caused by the COVID-19  pandemic.  

“Humanitarian budgets around the world have shrunk, and everyone has been trying to figure out how they can do more with less. It’s encouraging to see measures passed that increased humanitarian funding, such as the recent USAID ‘congressional passage of national security supplemental.’But that’s still just skimming the surface of what we actually need in order to address and address food insecurity.”

USAID has committed US$200 million to the provision of ready-to-use therapeutic food to treat malnutrition. 

“One thing that CARE and other INGOs have been pushing for lately is that with food assistance cuts taking place in virtually every country around the world, cuts should be coordinated with partners in order to ensure that protection needs aren’t exacerbated and that we can work together to mitigate any negative consequences to whatever extent possible, amid this environment of shrinking humanitarian budgets,” Courtney concludes.

By Milana Nikolova