The ripples of Ukraine war has already triggered acute food insecurity and is likely to deteriorate further in 20 countries, especially in hunger hotspots from June to September 2022, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).
In a joint report Hunger Hotspots – FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity, they said that Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen remain at ‘highest alert as hotspots with catastrophic conditions, and Afghanistan and Somalia are new entries to this worrisome category since the last hotspots report, released in January. These six countries all have parts of the population facing IPC phase 5 Catastrophe levels of risk of deterioration towards catastrophic conditions, with up to 750,000 people facing starvation and death.
It pointed out that 400,000 are in Ethiopia’s wartorn Tigray region – the highest number on record in a single country, since the famine in Somalia in 2011. Angola, Lebanon, Madagascar, and Mozambique also remain hunger hotspots, with Sri Lanka, Benin, Cabo Verde, Zimbabwe, Guinea, and Ukraine, now added to the list, the report said.
With the situation deteriorating, the FAO and WFP called for urgent humanitarian action to save lives and livelihoods and prevent famine in the 20 hunger hotspots’ where acute need is expected to rise, from now until September.
DRIVERS
Organised violence and conflict remain the primary drivers for acute hunger, with key trends indicating that conflict levels and violence against civilians continued to increase in 2022. Moreover, weather extremes such as tropical storms, flooding and drought remain critical drivers in some regions. Ripple effects of the war in Ukraine have been reverberating globally against the backdrop of a gradual and uneven economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, steadily increasing food and energy prices, and deteriorating macroeconomic conditions. Disruptions to the Ukrainian agricultural sector and constrained exports reduce global food supply, further increase global food prices, and finally push up already high levels of domestic food price inflation. Additionally, high fertilizer costs are likely to affect yields and therefore the future availability of food. Adding to the economic instability, civil unrest could emerge in some of the most affected countries in the upcoming months. Finally, humanitarian organisations are seeing sharp cost increases for their operations and reduced global attention risking to translate into increasing funding shortages.
RACE AGAINST TIME
“We are in a race against time to help farmers in the most affected countries, including by rapidly increasing potential food production and boosting their resilience in the face of challenges,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.
“We are deeply concerned about the combined impacts of overlapping crises jeopardizing people’s ability to produce and access foods, pushing millions more into extreme levels of acute food insecurity,” he said.
DROUGHT
Alongside conflict, the report finds that frequent and recurring climate shocks continue to drive acute hunger and shows that the world has entered a ‘new normal where droughts, flooding, hurricanes, and cyclones repeatedly decimate farming and livestock rearing, drive population displacement and push millions to the brink.
“We are facing a perfect storm that is not just going to hurt the poorest of the poor – it’s also going to overwhelm millions of families who until now have just about kept their heads above water,” warned WFP Executive Director David Beasley.
ACTION NEEDED
The report provides concrete country-specific recommendations for immediate humanitarian assistance to save lives, prevent famine and protect livelihoods.
Against the backdrop of a recent G7 commitment to strengthen anticipatory action in humanitarian and development assistance – preventing predictable hazards from becoming full-blown humanitarian disasters, FAO and WFP have partnered to ramp up pre-emptive measures
In the critical window between an early warning and a shock, the UN agencies advocate for flexible humanitarian funding to better anticipate needs and protect communities,
Evidence shows that for every one dollar invested in anticipatory action to safeguard lives and livelihoods, up to seven dollar can be saved by avoiding losses for disaster-affected communities, according to the report.
