As poverty and food insecurity continue to worsen globally, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General QU Dongyu, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank Group (WBG) President David Malpass, World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley and World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in joint statement has called for urgent actions to prevent the worsening problem of hunger, food and nutrition security crisis globally.
The organisations collectively agreed that poverty and food insecurity are both on the rise after decades of development gains.
It stated further that supply chain disruptions, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, financial tightening through rising interest rates and the war in Ukraine have caused an unprecedented shock to the global food system, with the most vulnerable hit the hardest and that food inflation remains high in the world, with dozens of countries experiencing double digit inflation.
They therefore called for rescuing of hunger hotspots, facilitation of trade, improve the functioning of markets, and enhance the role of the private sector, and reforming and repurpose harmful subsidies with careful targeting and efficiency.
It also urged countries should balance short-term urgent interventions with longer-term resilience efforts as they respond to the crisis.
According to WFP, 349 million people across 79 countries are acutely food insecure. The prevalence of undernourishment is also on the rise, following three years of deterioration.
“This situation is expected to worsen, with global food supplies projected to drop to a three-year low in 2022/2023 (1). The need is especially dire in 24 countries that FAO and WFP have identified as hunger hotspots, of which 16 are in Africa.
“(2). Fertilizer affordability as defined by the ratio between food prices and fertilizer prices (3) is also the lowest since the 2007/2008 food crisis, which is leading to lower food production and impacting smallholder farmers the hardest, worsening the already high local food prices. For example, the reduction in 2022 of the production of rice, for which Africa is the largest importer in the world, coupled with prospects of lower stocks, is of grave concern.
“In response to the inflation of food, fuel and fertilizer prices, countries have spent over $710 billion for social protection measures covering 1 billion people, including approximately $380 billion for subsidies. However, only $4.3 billion has been spent in low-income countries for social protection measures, compared to $507.6 billion in high-income countries,” he explained.
In 2022, WFP and partners reached a record number of people, more than 140 million, with food and nutrition assistance, based on a record-breaking $14 billion in contributions, of which $7.3 billion came from the United States Government alone. WFP sent over $3 billion in cash-based transfers to people in 72 countries and provided support to school feeding programs in 80 countries, including 15 million children through direct support and more than 90 million children through bolstering government national school feeding programs.
FAO has invested $1 billion to support more than 40 million people in rural areas with time sensitive agricultural interventions. These activities were primarily focused on the 53 countries listed in the Global Report on Food Crises.
The World Bank is providing a $30 billion food and nutrition security package covering the 15 months from April 2022 to June 2023, including $12 billion of new projects, which have all been committed ahead of schedule.
This also includes $3.5 billion in new financing for food and nutrition security in hotspots. In addition, the Bank has allocated $748 million from its $1 billion Early Response Financing modality of IDA’s Crisis Response Window (CRW) to mostly address needs in hotspots and is mobilizing additional funds for the CRW.
Funding for the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) must also be mobilized to provide concessional financing to low-income countries facing balance of payment needs.
