Global Food Insecurity by the Numbers
Issue No. 6: Food, Nutrition, and Access in Our Communities
Words - María Teresa Alzuru
People facing food insecurity lack the resources they need for adequate physical growth and development. This may mean they can’t consume enough calories, lack nutritional diversity within their diet (e.g. survive mostly on cheap grains), or don’t have access to clean drinking water, sanitation, and healthcare in order to stay healthy. The Global Report on Food Crises 2020 classifies food insecurity around the world into five levels of severity: 1-None or Minimal, 2-Stressed, 3-Crisis, 4-Emergency, and 5-Catastrophe or Famine. In 2019, almost 135 million people in 55 countries or territories were classified as being in Crisis conditions or worse by this report, an increase of 22 million or 20% from the year before.
What Causes Food Insecurity?
Many things can trigger or drive food insecurity; they are often linked and reinforce each other, creating a difficult-to-break cycle. The most common drivers of food Crises include:
Conflict between countries or within one country that causes people to leave their homes for safety and destroys or damages resources.
Extreme weather, like droughts, flooding, and off-season rain, that causes bad harvests and can cut off roads. Natural disasters, like earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, can similarly damage important infrastructure and property that takes years to rebuild.
Economic shocks, including change in the value of a country’s money, worsening terms of trade, and high unemployment, among others.
Health shocks, like disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics (as we’ve seen with COVID-19).
Crop, pests, and animal diseases: like desert locusts and African Swine Fever, that can disrupt food production and livestock.
What Areas of the World Face the Worst Food Crises?
Of the people in Crisis or worse, nearly one third of them are in three countries: Yemen (15.9M people), the Democratic Republic of Congo (15.6M people), and Afghanistan (11.3M people). Venezuela became the fourth largest food Crisis in 2019 with 9.3M people. There were seven countries with over 35% of the population in Crisis or worse - the highest being South Sudan at 61% of the population, followed by Yemen at 53%.
What Can We Expect to See in 2020-21?
Continued conflict and insecurity, extreme weather, COVID-19, economic shocks, and desert locusts are expected to be the primary drivers of food insecurity in 2020. However, the full impact of COVID-19 is yet to be seen as countries take different approaches to controlling the pandemic with varying levels of success. While some countries have been able to resume production and economic activity as virus rates fall, others continue to see rising rates pushing their ability to resume “business as usual” further into the future. As mentioned above, the drivers of food insecurity are linked and often feed into each other. The longer COVID-19 remains on the rise, the more we can expect other factors to worsen and more people to be driven into food insecurity.
