RIYADH: Global food insecurity is much worse than previously thought, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 report released this week by a coalition of United Nations entities, which found that efforts to tackle undernutrition have suffered serious setbacks.
As countries around the world remain significantly short of achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 of “zero hunger” by 2030, the report finds that climate change is increasingly recognized as a key factor exacerbating hunger and food insecurity.
As a major importer of food commodities, the Middle East and North Africa region is considered particularly vulnerable to climate-induced crop failures in source countries and the resulting imposition of protectionist tariffs and fluctuations in commodity prices.
“Climate change is a major driver of food insecurity in the Middle East, where both global and local shocks matter,” David Laborde, director of the division of agri-food economics and policy at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, told Arab News.
“Now, especially for the Middle East, I think the global aspect is important because the Middle East imports a lot of food. Even if you don't have a (climate) shock at home, if you don't have a drought or flood at home, if it happened in Pakistan, if it happened in India, if it happened in Canada, the Middle East will feel it.”
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The State of World Food Security and Nutrition Report has been produced annually since 1999 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization to monitor global progress in the fight against hunger.
At a recent event at United Nations Headquarters in New York, the report’s authors stressed the urgent need for creative and equitable solutions to address the financial gap needed to help nations suffering from severe hunger and malnutrition, exacerbated by climate change.
In addition to climate change, the report found that factors such as conflict and economic crises are becoming more frequent and severe, impacting access to healthy diets, unhealthy food environments and inequalities.
Indeed, food insecurity and malnutrition are intensifying due to persistent food price inflation, which has undermined economic progress globally.
“There is also an indirect effect that we should not overlook: the way in which climate shock interacts with conflict,” Laborde said.
In North Africa, for example, negative climate shocks can lead to more conflict, “either because people start competing for natural resources, access to water, or simply because there are people in your area who have nothing else to do,” he said.
“There is no work, they cannot work on their farm and so they can join the insurrections or other elements.”
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In 2023, up to 757 million people were hungry: the equivalent of one in 11 people in the world and one in five in Africa.
The prevalence of food insecurity globally has remained unchanged for three consecutive years, despite progress made in Latin America.
Some improvement has been observed in the overall prevalence of stunting and wasting among children under five years of age.
By the end of 2021, G20 countries have committed to withdrawing $100 billion of unused special drawing rights held in the central banks of high-income countries and allocating them to low- and middle-income countries.
Since then, however, the pledged amount has fallen by $13 billion, with the worst-off countries receiving less than 1% of this support.
Saudi Arabia is one of the countries that has exceeded the 20% commitment, along with Australia, Canada, China, France and Japan, while others have failed to reach 10% or have stopped committing altogether.
“Saudi Arabia is a very large state in the Middle East, so what it does is important, but it also has a financial capacity that many other countries don’t have,” Laborde said.
“It can be through their SDRs. It can also be through their sovereign wealth fund because where you invest and how you invest are important to make the world more sustainable. So, I will say yes, prioritizing investments in low- and middle-income countries on food, security and nutrition programs can be important.
Although the prevalence of undernutrition in Saudi Arabia has declined in recent years, the report shows that the rate of stunting among children has actually increased by 1.4 percent over the past 10 years.
There has also been an increase in rates of childhood overweight, obesity, and anemia in women, as the population continues to grow. In this sense, it is not so much a lack of food, but a lack of healthy eating habits.
“Saudi Arabia is a good example where I would say traditional hunger and lack of food… becomes less and less of a problem, but other forms of malnutrition actually become what is important,” Laborde said.
In 2023, an estimated 2.33 billion people worldwide faced moderate or severe food insecurity and one in 11 people suffered from hunger, a situation exacerbated by various factors, such as economic decline and climate change.
The economic sustainability of healthy eating is also a crucial issue, especially in low-income countries, where over 71% of the population cannot afford adequate food.
In countries like Saudi Arabia, where overeating is a growing problem, Laborde suggests that adequate investment in nutrition and health education, as well as policy adaptation, could be the way forward.
While the Kingdom continues to extend its support to countries in crisis, including Palestine, Sudan and Yemen, through its humanitarian arm KSrelief, these states continue to struggle with dire conditions. Gaza in particular has suffered from the war with Israel.
“Even before the conflict started, especially at the end of last year, the situation in Palestine was complicated, both in terms of the agricultural system (and) population density. There was already a problem of malnutrition,” Laborde said.
“Now, something that is true everywhere, in Sudan, in Yemen, in Palestine, when you start adding conflict and military operations, the population suffers a lot because you can actually destroy production. You destroy access to water. But people can’t even go to the grocery store when the truck or the ship that brings the food is stopped.”
Although Palestine and Sudan represent extreme cases, there are still approximately 733 million people in the world suffering from hunger, which confirms the high levels observed in the last three years.
“On the ground, we work with the World Food Programme (and) other organizations, with the goal of bringing food to people in need in Palestine,” Laborde said of FAO's work. “Before the conflict and after, we will also work to rebuild the things that need to be rebuilt. But without peace, there are limited things we can do.”
FAO helps food-insecure countries by providing better seeds, animals, technologies and irrigation solutions to develop production systems, and works to protect livestock from pests and diseases by providing veterinary services and creating incentives for countries to adopt better policies.
The report’s projections for 2030 suggest that around 582 million people will continue to suffer from chronic undernutrition, half of them in Africa. This mirrors levels seen in 2015, when the SDGs were adopted, indicating an ongoing plateau.
The report highlights the need to create better financial distribution systems, in line with this year's theme: “Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition.”
“In 2022, there were a lot of headlines about world hunger, but today, this has more or less disappeared, while the numbers and people suffering from hunger have not disappeared,” Laborde said, referring to the negative impact of the war in Ukraine on world food prices.
“We have to say that we are not keeping the promises made by policy makers. The world today produces enough food, so it is much more important how we distribute it, how we provide access. It is a man-made problem, and therefore it should be a man-made solution.”
