Conflict, climate change increase hunger and malnutrition across Africa

While the world’s farmers produce more than enough food to feed the planet’s nearly 8 billion people, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “hunger and malnutrition are a fact of life” for billions.

In a message in advance of World Food Day on October 16, Guterres said 733 million people globally are short of food because of “conflict, marginalization, climate change, poverty and economic downturns.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization was established 79 years ago on October 16 with a mandate to provide people with greater access to food that not only quelled hunger but also was safe, nutritious and culturally acceptable.

But Dominique Burgeon, director of the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva, told journalists Tuesday that “We continue to witness severe imbalances across the world.”

“One in 11 people in the world go to bed hungry every day, over 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. … We have also the issue of stunting and wasting. As we speak, about 148 million children under the age of 5 are too short for their age, and 45 million are too thin for their height,” he said.

The U.N. children’s fund said children suffering from wasting, which is caused by a lack of nutritious and safe food and repeated bouts of disease, are dangerously thin and their immune systems are weak, “leaving them vulnerable to growth failure, poor development and death.”

UNICEF appealed for $165 million Tuesday to provide essential ready-to-use-therapeutic food for nearly 2 million severely malnourished children “at risk of death” in the 12 hardest-hit countries — Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Pakistan and Uganda.

“Levels of severe wasting in children under 5 years remain gravely high in several countries, fueled by conflict, economic shocks and climate crises,” it warned.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is among several humanitarian agencies expressing alarm at the escalating incidence of acute hunger and malnutrition across wide swathes of Africa.

“The consequences of armed conflict in the region of Lake Chad, compounded by the effect of climate change, continue killing people, and especially the most vulnerable, the young children,” said Yann Bonzon, head of the ICRC delegation for Nigeria.

Speaking in Nigeria, he told journalists that “Every day, doctors and nurses in health facilities we support in northeast Nigeria receive and treat severely malnourished kids. Desperate mothers tell us every day how healthy children become weak and fall sick, and how putting food on the table has turned into a daily struggle.”

Underscoring the seriousness of the situation, he noted that the number of children treated for severe malnutrition in ICRC health facilities in northeast Nigeria has increased by 24% over the past year.

Humanitarian organizations estimate that across the Lake Chad region nearly 6.1 million people, the highest number in the past four years, will suffer from food shortages in the coming months.

“Farmers tell us how the rampant insecurity due to conflict is preventing farmers from planting their crops” and climate shocks have damaged crops, “contributing to a food crisis across Lake Chad in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria,” Bonzon said.

A similar scenario is playing out in southern Africa. The United Nations warns a widespread drought in the region, triggered by an El Nino weather pattern could turn into a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe without international assistance.

The World Food Program said the historic drought has devastated more than 27 million lives across the region, noting that some 21 million children are malnourished.

“For many communities, this is the worst food crisis yet,” said Tomson Phiri, WFP spokesperson for Southern Africa.

“October in Southern Africa marks the start of the lean season, and each month is expected to be worse than the previous one until harvests next year in March and April,” he said. “ Crops have failed, livestock has perished and children are lucky to receive one meal per day. The situation is dire, and the need for action has never been clearer.”

The World Food Program said a record five countries – Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe – have declared the hunger crisis “a state of disaster” and have called for international support. The agency noted that Angola and Mozambique also are severely affected.

The U.N. food agency expressed concern that urgent appeals for international support are falling on deaf ears, noting that “we have only received one-fifth of the $369 million needed to provide life-saving assistance to millions in southern Africa.”