Calamity of acute food insecurity! FAO says 113 million people suffer acute hunger in the world

United Nations, Apr 3: The world is fighting with numerous issues today. The instability and economic crisis and climate change are the major problems. According to FAO’s latest report, More than 113 million people across 53 countries experienced “acute hunger” last year because of wars and climate disasters.

 

According to the UN’s agency, Africa is the worst-hit region. As per the 2019 global report on food crises of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and Syria were among the eight nations accounting for two-thirds of the total number of people worldwide exposed to the risk of famine.

Director of FAO’s emergencies, Dominique Bourgeon said, “African states were "disproportionally" affected as close to 72 million people on the continent suffered acute hunger”.

Data of report shows, conflict and insecurity remained the key factors along with economic turbulence and climate-related shocks like droughts and floods.

Further, Bourgeon said, “In countries on the verge of famine, "up to 80 percent of the population depends on agriculture. They need both emergency humanitarian aid for food and measures to help boost agriculture”.

 

The report emphasized the stress put on countries hosting large numbers of refugees, including neighboring nations of war-torn Syria as well as Bangladesh, which has received more than a million Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar.

The FAO stated it also expected the number of displaced people to increase "if the political and economic crisis persists in Venezuela" which is likely to declare a food emergency this year.

Bourgeon said, he was concerned by the "important and significative rise" in poverty in Venezuela, as it grapples with dire economic and living conditions worsened by an ongoing political crisis.

Globally, the study showed that the overall situation slightly improved in 2018 compared to 2017 when 124 million people suffered acute hunger. The drop can partially be recognized to the fact that some countries in Latin America and the Asia Pacific region, for instance, were less affected by weather disasters that had struck in previous years.

However, the FAO cautioned that the year-on-year trend of more than 100 million people facing famine was unlikely to change in the face of continued crises. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria all suffered bad droughts in 2018, which severely impacted agricultural output.

The FAO also stressed that "high levels of acute and chronic malnutrition in children living in emergency conditions remained of grave concern".