UN calls for action against global starvation as political upheaval exacerbates food insecurity

16 Sep 2022 --- The United Nations (UN) has released a report stressing the need for funding and action on global starvation. Global food insecurity is being accelerated by droughts, rising commodity prices driven by inflation, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war.

“People in South Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia are “quite literally on the front lines of climate change” as they confront droughts, floods, desertification and water scarcity,” says Martin Griffiths, chief of humanitarian affairs at the UN.

At the same time, Pakistan is experiencing its worst ever flooding, leaving people stranded on islands where villages once stood.

Downhill economy drives starvation
When the economy is declining, Griffith stresses that the most vulnerable people in the world are inevitably most severely affected. As a tactic of war, access to food and work becomes impossible for many.

“In the most extreme cases, fighting parties have deliberately cut off access to the commercial supplies and essential services that civilians rely on to survive,” he said.

Millions of people are on the edge of starvation in several parts of the world, the UN stresses.In Somalia, 200,000 people are at risk of famine – a number expected to reach 300,000 by November – while “millions of people are on the verge of starvation.”

Meanwhile, the seven-year armed conflict in Yemen has caused 19 million people to experience food insecurity, with 580,000 children being severely malnourished and 160,000 people facing a catastrophe. 

Across Ethiopia, 13 million people require food assistance on a life-saving level. In recent years, humanitarian aid accelerated in the north part of the country, although “the resumption of hostilities in recent weeks is undoing recent progress,” Griffith underscores.

The UN also stresses that 4.1 million people face high levels of food insecurity in conflict areas – Adamawa, Yobe and Borno. Over half a million people were at emergency levels earlier this year, where half was unreachable with humanitarian aid.

“Food security assessments could not be conducted in these areas, but we fear that some people may already be at catastrophe-level and risk death,” he said.

Linking climate changePakistan is experiencing record high levels of flooding, with the foreign minister calling for a global response.
In Pakistan, the UN says that months of extreme monsoon rains have flooded the country and taken the lives of 1300 people. The foreign minister Zardari said that “the crisis is not made by Pakistan and the response must be on a global scale.” 

Griffith also refers to global climate change being a present and future issue, encouraging all member states to prioritize funding climate adaptation grants.

David Beasley, chief of the World Food Program, says there is an unpredicted magnitude of the global emergency of starvation and famine. 

“Since the Ukraine conflict began, a ‘wave of hunger has turned into a tsunami.’ Up to 345 million people in 82 countries are moving toward starvation,” he says. The number of acute food insecure people is “record high,” and 2.5 times higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Griffith stresses that it is not too late for action, while conflicts should be solved through negotiating peaceful solutions. He adds that states and armed groups “must abide by their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law to ensure unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief.”

“The hungry people of the world are counting on us to do the right thing – and we must not let them down,” says Beasley.

By Beatrice Wihlander