The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called for massive deployment of technology and data to tackle the growing threat to rural livelihoods and food security.
The Organisation said advances in technology and data now allow us to predict and anticipate many disasters before they strike, bringing human suffering – but use of these tools must be massively scaled up.
FAO director of Emergencies and Resilience, Rein Paulsen, in a remark at a High-level Humanitarian event on Anticipatory action in New York at the weekend said faced with the increasing frequency, intensity, and complexity of the crises, the world cannot continue to rely on the same strategies used yesterday, it has to innovate and invest more smartly and efficiently.
He said the number of people trapped in food crises has continued to climb over the past 5 years, reaching 155 million people in 55 countries in 2020. “Currently, over 41 million people are facing emergency levels of food insecurity and are at risk of falling into famine or famine-like conditions unless they receive immediate life-saving assistance. “Yet while humanitarian funding to the food sector grew from USD 6.2 billion to nearly USD 8 billion between 2016 and 2019, a significant shortfall persists, Paulsen noted – this despite ample evidence that anticipatory action to help vulnerable rural communities build their resilience before disasters hit is far more cost-effective than responding with aid after the fact. “Better technology and data means we now have the tools to better understand – and predict – crises and their impact,” said Paulsen. “FAO has been doubling down on anticipatory action” and “putting our money where our values are,” he added.