THIRD WORLD NETWORK INFORMATION SERVICE ON SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

United Nations: Acute food insecurity reaches new highs, say FAO/WFP
Published in SUNS #9401 dated 5 August 2021

Geneva, 4 Aug (Kanaga Raja) – Acute food insecurity is likely to further deteriorate in 23 hunger hotspots during the period from August to November 2021, according to a joint report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

In their latest Hunger Hotspots report, FAO/WFP said that conflict is expected to remain the primary driver of acute hunger, alongside economic shocks – including secondary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic – and natural hazard risks.

“Higher international food prices risk further constraining vulnerable households’ access to food, as they transmit onto domestic food prices,” said FAO/WFP.

The ongoing increase of climate hazards and weather extremes, and in their severity, is likely to continue during the outlook period, affecting livelihoods in several parts of the world, they added.

Targeted humanitarian action is urgently needed to save lives and livelihoods in the 23 hotspots, they further said.

The 23 hotspots in question are: Afghanistan; Angola; the Central African Republic; Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua); Central Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali and the Niger); Chad; Colombia; the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; Ethiopia; Haiti; Kenya; Lebanon; Madagascar; Mozambique; Myanmar; Nigeria; Sierra Leone together with Liberia; Somalia; South Sudan; the Sudan; Syria; and Yemen.

According to FAO/WFP, Ethiopia and Madagascar are the new highest-alert hotspots. In Ethiopia, up to 401,000 people are projected to be in the Catastrophe phase (IPC Phase 5) between July and September 2021 – the highest number since the 2011 famine in Somalia – due to the impact of conflict in the Tigray region.

In Madagascar, a total of 28,000 people are also at risk of famine by the end of 2021, due to the country’s worst drought in 40 years.

These countries add to Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria, which also remain as the highest alert hotspots.

Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti, as well as the Sudan and the Syrian Arab Republic, are hotspot countries of imminent concern, said FAO/WFP.

“In these countries, life-threatening conditions are expected to intensify in the outlook period up to November 2021, as a result of worsening conflict or armed violence, economic decline, weather extremes and climate variability, often combined with humanitarian access constraints.”

The joint report said that in 2020, 155 million people were estimated to be in acute high food insecurity (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) across 55 countries/territories, up by 20 million from 2019, and that this negative trend is continuing well into 2021.

FAO/WFP said that acute hunger is increasing not only in scale but also severity: overall, over 41 million people worldwide are now at risk of falling into famine or famine-like conditions, unless they receive immediate life and livelihood-saving assistance.

“The vast majority of those on the verge are farmers. Alongside food assistance, we must do all we can to help them resume food production themselves, so that families and communities can move back towards self-sufficiency and not just depend on aid to survive,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu.

“That’s difficult without access, and without adequate funding – and so far, support to agriculture as key means of preventing widespread famine remains largely overlooked by donors, unfortunately. Without such support to agriculture, humanitarian needs will keep skyrocketing, that’s inevitable,” he added.

“Families that rely on humanitarian assistance to survive are hanging by a thread. When we cannot reach them, that thread is cut, and the consequences are nothing short of catastrophic,” said David Beasley, Executive Director of WFP.

“The road to Zero Hunger isn’t paved with conflict, checkpoints and red tape. Humanitarian access isn’t some abstract concept – it means authorities approving paperwork in time so that food can be moved swiftly, it means checkpoints allow trucks to pass and reach their destination, it means humanitarian responders are not targeted, so they are able to carry out their life- and livelihood-saving work,” added Beasley.

KEY DRIVERS OF FOOD INSECURITY

In highlighting the risks of conflict as one of the key drivers of food insecurity, the joint report said key hotspots for intensifying violence include Afghanistan, Central Sahel, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, northern Nigeria, northern Mozambique, Myanmar, the Sudan and Yemen.

In these hotspots, conflict and other forms of violence are likely to continue driving food insecurity, it added.

For example, this can happen through population displacement, abandonment of agricultural land, loss of life and assets, disruption of trade and cropping, and loss of access to markets. Crucially, violence is also likely to disrupt access to humanitarian assistance.

In Afghanistan, the ongoing withdrawal of foreign military forces could be completed as early as August, raising concerns over an ensuing escalation of violence, which may lead to additional people becoming displaced and pose serious challenges for humanitarian access.

The Central Sahel continues to face deteriorating security, with a consolidation of insurgent groups and a related rise in targeting of civilians and inter-communal violence. The year 2020 was recorded as the region’s single most violent year.

In the Central African Republic, continued pockets of escalation persist in the northwest and central regions of the country, with rising concerns over humanitarian access in the context of political tensions.

FAO/WFP said Nigeria faces one of the sharpest deteriorations in its security environment in recent years, with a territorial consolidation by insurgents in the northeast and spreading violence in the northwest and Middle Belt.

In the Syrian Arab Republic, conflict-intensity continues to fluctuate in the northeast areas, while Yemen faces a risk of conflict escalation, with the prospect of fighting spreading to Ma’rib city, potentially displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

Highlighting the economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, FAO/WFP said that the pandemic has had a vast impact on the world economy, causing a 3.5 percent contraction of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2020.

The International Labour Organization revised upwards to 8.8 percent the estimation of total working hours lost due to the pandemic, while according to the World Bank, income losses caused by the health crisis and movement restrictions that most governments imposed worldwide have pushed approximately 97 million more people into poverty.

FAO/WFP said the economic impact of the crisis has been unequal across regions, and Latin America and South Asia have been hit particularly hard. Similarly, the recovery appears to be occurring unevenly.

One critical factor behind this is the difference in the pace of the various vaccine roll-outs across countries and regions, it added.

The World Bank forecasts that while poverty rates have begun declining again in most middle- and high-income countries during 2021, in low-income nations they are expected to keep stagnating, and even increasing, at least until 2022, as a result of the macroeconomic deteriorations that the pandemic has caused.

Higher debt levels, lower foreign-exchange reserves and reduced fiscal space are likely to cause further economic hardship and food insecurity in several low-income countries over the coming months. This is especially the case where the pandemic’s economic impact has exacerbated significant pre-existing fragilities, said FAO/WFP.

The joint report also noted that food prices increased steadily from June 2020 to May 2021, led by a surge in prices of vegetable oils, sugar and cereals due to strong demand amid the economic recovery from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite a weakening in June 2021, food prices, measured by the FAO Food Price Index, were more than 30 percent higher year on year.

High international food prices, together with elevated freight costs are likely to increase the global food import bill in 2021, especially in developing countries, where the demand for imported foodstuffs is on the rise, FAO/WFP said.

The countries’ import capacity is likely to be curtailed by the negative impacts of the pandemic on local economies, it added.

“High international food prices, once transmitted to domestic markets, will constrain the food access of vulnerable households and negatively impact food security,” said FAO/WFP.

Furthermore, in 2020, almost all low- and middle-income countries were affected by pandemic-induced economic downturns.

After remaining virtually unchanged for five years, the prevalence of undernourishment increased 1.5 percentage points in 2020 – reaching around 9.9 percent.

More than half of the world’s undernourished people are found in Asia (418 million) and more than one-third in Africa (282 million).

FAO/WFP said in the Near East and North Africa, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is overlapping with socio-economic damages caused by the protracted conflicts in Yemen and the Syrian Arab Republic, leading to a significant rise in poverty and food insecurity.

In Lebanon, the pandemic aggravated the country’s financial and economic collapse, ongoing since the end of 2019.

“This is poised to cause even-larger food inflation and deplete foreign-exchange reserves, which will further erode food security.”

In Latin America, COVID-19 exacerbated the region’s pre-existing economic fragilities, which are the result of a protracted period of stagnating growth, said the joint report.

The region, consequently, has seen the strongest economic output decline and its recovery is expected to be below average in the coming months and years compared to the rest of the developing world.

FAO/WFP said in Haiti, currency fluctuations and political instability have been continuously driving down the population’s purchasing power.

Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua in Central America are expected to witness further economic difficulties in the coming months, due to the pandemic’s effects on their fragile economies.

Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua are additionally still recovering from the damages caused by hurricanes Eta and Iota.

In Asia, said FAO/WFP, a major second wave of COVID-19 has slowed down the strong economic recovery the region was experiencing since the end of 2020 and led to the introduction of new stringent movement restrictions in several countries.

In Myanmar, millions of people have been pushed into poverty by the impacts of the 1 February military takeover, the civil unrest which ensued, conflict and COVID-19, which in combination led to the largest economic downturn in the country’s recent history.

Several African countries, such as the Sudan, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Liberia, continue to see high levels of currency depreciation and food inflation, which is reducing people’s purchasing power.

Considering that some of these countries import substantial amounts of food to meet domestic needs, elevated international food prices will likely reduce food consumption of poor segments of the population in the coming months, said FAO/WFP.

Highlighting the risks posed by natural hazards, FAO/WFP said that although La Nina conditions have subsided – after they contributed to severe rainfall deficits in Afghanistan, Madagascar, southwestern Angola and parts of East Africa – weather extremes and climate variability are likely to affect several parts of the world during the outlook period.

In Haiti, reduced precipitation during the main growing season, which ended in May, is likely to have impacted yields, while continued below-average rainfall is likely to reduce yields for the main rice season.

Nigeria’s Middle Belt and the Dry Corridor in Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua are currently facing rainfall deficits, which forecasts predict will continue for the remainder of the season and this is likely to lead to reduced yields and crop losses, as well as less pasture for livestock.

The joint report said that drought conditions affected major crop producing areas in the east of the Syrian Arab Republic, and early indications from seasonal forecasts suggest, with moderate likelihood, another below average rainy season starting in September.

In South Sudan, above-average rainfall is expected to continue between July and September in most of the country, including the northeast, southeast, central and northwestern parts, with an increased likelihood of major floods in some areas. This may lead to displacement and crop damages, it added.

In central and eastern Sahel, the forecast is suggesting an increased likelihood of above-average rainfall, likely leading to flooding along the Niger river, said FAO/WFP.

“Hurricane activity is forecast to be above-average in the eastern Pacific and the north Atlantic, increasing the risk of flooding, landslides, crop damage and reduced numbers of livestock in the Caribbean and coastal areas of Central America.”

FAO/WFP said that cyclone activity in the northwestern Pacific will enter its peak in August and September, also threatening the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Important desert locust infestations remained in the Horn of Africa as of the beginning of July, while other regions were calm.

Current field operations, as well as extreme vigilance, should be maintained in Ethiopia, northern Somalia and Yemen, among the hotspot countries, said FAO/WFP.

Highlighting the constraints to humanitarian access in several countries as an aggravating factor, the joint report said that in all the hunger hotspots, as parts of the population are likely to face deteriorating levels of acute food insecurity, urgent assistance is required to protect the livelihoods of vulnerable people and increase their access to food.

This would avoid a food emergency or, at the more critical levels, prevent starvation, death and the total collapse of livelihoods, it added.

When access of humanitarian actors to people in need is restricted, the risk of deterioration rises, said FAO/WFP.

Humanitarian access is limited in various ways, including administrative or bureaucratic impediments, movement restrictions, security constraints and physical constraints related to the environment, FAO/WFP concluded.