AlJazeera :
Food insecurity in the world’s poorest countries reached record highs in 2020, with millions staring at famine, a situation exacerbated in part by the COVID pandemic, according to a UN report.
From Haiti to Syria, some 155 million people across 55 countries who rely the most on humanitarian assistance were classified as being in “crisis” – meaning in urgent need of food – a 20 million increase since 2019, according to the report released Wednesday. The report – based on a study organised by the Global Network Against Food Crises, a partnership between the European Union, Food and Agriculture Organization, and the UN World Food Programme – attributed three main factors to the worsening situation: conflict, economic factors related to the COVID pandemic and climate change.
“It’s a toxic combination,” Luca Russo, a senior emergency and rehabilitation officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization and one of the co-authors of the report, told Al Jazeera. Of the 155 million people in crisis, Russo said 28 million were close to famine. He added that the situation could deteriorate in a matter of weeks.
“We cannot wait for a famine declaration to act,” he said, urging the international community to provide more assistance to the most at-risk countries, which receive 97 percent of external humanitarian assistance. The report’s authors rated each of the 55 countries’ level of food insecurity on a scale of 1 to 5 – 1 meaning households are able to meet basic food requirements and 5 being a catastrophe or famine level requiring urgent attention. Those most affected by food insecurity live in countries of conflict or recent conflict – including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Sudan.
