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Opinion | Rich are getting richer but more people are going hungry in Global South. Why?
- The triple whammy of Covid-19, climate change and the war in Ukraine has intensified food insecurities worldwide, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
- The crisis is getting worse and the goal to end hunger by 2030 looks further away than ever
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Serious, even alarming, levels of hunger are eating away at the Global South, particularly in Africa and South Asia, according to the latest Global Hunger Index, as the undernourished masses grow to 735 million, up from an already worrying 572 million in 2017.
Although the triple whammy of Covid-19, climate change and Russia’s war on Ukraine has intensified food insecurities worldwide, the impact has been most deeply felt in sub-Saharan Africa. The nine countries defined as having an “alarming” level of hunger are overwhelmingly concentrated in that region: Burundi, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Niger, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.
But there are also a further 34 countries with a “serious” hunger issue, including India, the world’s most populous nation, Pakistan and East Timor.
In a post-pandemic world still facing acute food insecurities, the hunger crisis raises some hard questions. Is there the right global structure in place to handle the challenge? Are there too many agencies working in the area with no concrete results? Are their mandates clear, or is there an overlap? Do they have the resources to do the job?
Crucially, is there strong enough leadership globally to handle this unprecedented crisis? There is no looking away from the catastrophe of mass starvation. According to the World Food Programme, pre-pandemic, 135 million people in 53 countries were grappling with acute food insecurity – this year, the numbers are set to rise to 345 million people in 79 states.
The human costs of such large-scale hunger are huge. For instance, anaemia – a condition closely correlated with hunger – affects some 571 million women and 269 million young children. Unsurprisingly, the highest prevalence is found among those in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
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