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	Humanitarian leaders call on global donors to fund nutrition crisis by IRC, World Vision, Action Against Hunger, agencies   The International Rescue Committee, together with CARE, 1,000 Days, HarvestPlus, Bread for the World, RESULTS Canada, KANCO, Concern Worldwide, Save the Children, World Vision, Action Against Hunger, and the Eleanor Crook Foundation endorse the following statement on World Food Day:   The Covid-19 pandemic, and its disruption to health and economic systems, is driving higher rates of a severe form of malnutrition. Urgent action is needed to save children’s lives and avert increased acute malnutrition and hunger during the pandemic and beyond. Global donors must increase their commitment to nutrition.   Year after year, over seven percent of the world’s children under age 5 – approximately 47 million children in 2019 - -- suffer from a dangerous form of malnutrition referred to as acute malnutrition, or wasting. This form of malnutrition can increase mortality risk up to 11x that of a healthy child.   Covid-19 is driving rates of malnutrition up. World hunger is projected to rise to an additional 132 million people this year as a result of the pandemic, and acute malnutrition itself is projected to rise 14 percent- bringing the number of children under age 5 with acute malnutrition to 54 million.   In four conflict-affected settings, the crisis is even more grave: Yemen, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Northeast Nigeria are experiencing crisis-level food insecurity and acute malnutrition. The United Nations has recently warned that the situation in these countries is likely to worsen unless immediate action is taken.   This stark increase in malnutrition, and the growing complexity of the hunger and nutrition landscape, threatens decades of progress to reduce child mortality.   Global progress on acute malnutrition has taken place slowly over the last twenty five years. Efforts to reach these children with life-saving treatment, called therapeutic foods, have been painfully slow, with only twenty percent of children needing treatment accessing it.   Therapeutic foods were first developed in 1996, and yet remain widely unavailable to children in need. Prevention efforts like vitamin A supplementation and breastfeeding promotion must also be scaled up.   However, innovations in recent years have brought new hope for malnourished children.   New research into different approaches for treatment- including delivery by community health workers, and a simpler, more efficient treatment protocol- offer the promise of reaching more children, and stretching every dollar further.   Recognizing the need for progress, last year United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres convened the leadership of United Nations agencies, and collectively they produced and agreed to an ambitious set of goals, released earlier this year as the Global Action Plan on Wasting.   This commitment to accelerate progress- including scaling treatment to reach 50 percent more children - is paired with a commitment from the World Health Organization to review its guidelines on wasting, potentially paving the way for wider use of new approaches and innovations.   However, much remains to be done to reach the ambitious targets committed to in the Global Action Plan. United Nations agencies and national governments alike must maintain and increase resources for health systems- including investing in critical areas which are important for closing equity gaps and ensuring that every child can access the treatment they need.   Severe funding gaps   Despite the depth and severity of the needs, global nutrition efforts remain deeply underfunded. UN agency heads have indicated that $2.4 billion in additional investment is needed to truly protect children by preventing and treating acute malnutrition.   This would support a full package of nutrition interventions - scaling up access to treatment, expanding prevention efforts like vitamin A supplementation, and promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding.   The most essential programming for nutrition response to the pandemic are outlined in the United Nations’ Global Humanitarian Response Plan. This plan has requested $247 million for essential nutrition response: to date, only three percent- approximately $7.7 million- has been funded.   Donors must commit to meeting the needs of these children   This World Food Day, we are calling attention to the deep, and increasing, need for nutrition funding. To avert increased child mortality due to increased acute malnutrition and hunger during the pandemic and beyond, global donors need to increase their commitment to nutrition.   Funding commitments to nutrition should be increased immediately through fulfillment of the UN’s Global Humanitarian Response Plan. And over the long-term, donors need to significantly increase long term funding commitments to nutrition: global donors should make strong commitments to address nutrition needs at next year’s Nutrition for Growth summit, including a doubling for nutrition-specific interventions like acute malnutrition treatment.   Covid-19 has stressed countries’ finances across the globe, but we cannot let millions more children suffer hunger, malnutrition, and even death, because of the pandemic.   http://www.rescue.org/press-release/humanitarian-leaders-call-global-donors-fund-nutrition-crisis-world-food-day http://www.savethechildren.net/news/malnutrition-could-kill-153-children-every-day-over-next-two-years-because-covid-19-warns-save http://www.wfp.org/news/nutrition-crisis-looms-more-39-billion-school-meals-missed-start-pandemic-unicef-and-wfp http://www.wfp.org/nutrition http://www.wfp.org/news/pandemic-derails-historic-advances-childrens-access-school-meals http://news.un.org/en/story/2021/02/1085552 http://reliefweb.int/report/world/state-school-feeding-worldwide-2020 http://reliefweb.int/report/world/covid-19-response-situation-report-21-22-february-2021 http://www.unicef.org/reports/fed-to-fail-child-nutrition   July 2021   More than 5.7 million children under five on the brink of starvation   With an estimated 5.7 million children under five on the brink of starvation across the globe, the world is facing the biggest global hunger crisis of the 21st century, Save the Children warned. A further 13 million children under 18 are facing extreme food shortages, the organisation said.   Child hunger and malnutrition is on the rise, with many families and communities struggling to provide their children with enough nutritious food.   A deadly combination of COVID-19, conflicts, and the impacts of climate change have pushed hunger and malnutrition levels to a record global high. Without urgent action, we may see thousands of children starving to death, reversing decades of progress, Save the Children warned.   In Syria, hunger levels rose by 56 percent between 2019 and the end of 2020, with two in three people in the country needing food or livelihood support.   In Burkina Faso and Yemen, hunger levels rose by almost 10 percent. In Afghanistan, almost one in two children under five (3.1 million children) are facing acute malnutrition and need life-saving treatment.   Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children, said:   "Storms, floods, droughts, wars and the COVID-19 crisis have deeply impacted harvests, livestock, food prices and people’s livelihoods. But in today’s world, where there is enough food to feed every child and adult if we distribute it fairly, it is outrageous that millions face malnutrition and starvation. We have an opportunity to save many of these children, but we need to act now.”   To stop a disaster from unfolding further, Save the Children is launching the largest ever appeal in its history, aiming to raise $130 million in the coming months.   Hasna, 23, is a young Syrian mother who had to flee her home in northeast Syria. She and her 18-month-old son Majad are both malnourished:   “Sometimes, when I breastfeed my son, my milk isn’t enough for him. I therefore give him some rice or bulgur. There is nothing else I can feed him like fruit or meat.”   “I started seeing his health getting bad. They measured his arm and they said he had malnutrition. They measured mine as well and said I had malnutrition also. There was nothing I could do. I came back to the tent and started crying.”   In crises, children are always the most vulnerable. Without adequate nutritious food, children cannot develop as they should and are at a high risk of acute malnutrition. This can lead to stunting or death, with irreversible damage to a child’s physical and cognitive development.   Save the Children’s warning was triggered after analysing Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) data, looking at the number of children in the two highest levels of acute food insecurity. According to the analysis:   The Democratic Republic of Congo has the highest number of children under five who are facing emergency levels of food shortages: 1.1 million children.   In Yemen, almost 700,000 children under five face critical food shortages and in Afghanistan, almost half a million children are facing extreme hunger.   This includes an estimated 41 million people experiencing IPC4, which means they are only one step away from famine. A further 150 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by the end of this year alone.   In 2020, 45 million children under the age of five were wasted. Without action, an additional 9.3 million more children could suffer wasting.   Save the Children said that even without famines being officially declared, many more children are dying from diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria as a direct impact of extreme food insecurity and malnutrition. These are largely preventable diseases if world leaders and humanitarian organisations act swiftly.   Ms Ashing continued: “Our teams on the ground are seeing the number of malnutrition cases rise by the day. No child should ever go hungry. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa, when up to 260,000 people died, many of them children.”   “There’s no vaccine for hunger, but there is a solution if we act now. Governments have to step up, honour their commitments, and do their part before it becomes a death sentence for so many children and adults."   Save the Children is calling on governments to fully fund humanitarian response plans, and support social protection schemes and health and nutrition services for children, including the treatment of acute malnutrition.   We’re urging donors to prioritise humanitarian cash and voucher assistance for families, and to prioritise the increased risks of violence—particularly gender-based violence—caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.   The organisation also urges influential governments to push for humanitarian access in all contexts, so all children can receive the support they need.   To truly put an end to global hunger and the malnutrition crisis, however, the international community must address the root causes of food and nutrition insecurity.   Mitigating the worst effects of COVID-19 is just part of the solution, Save the Children said. Only by putting an end to global conflict, tackling changing climate and food systems, and building more resilient systems and communities will we be able to ensure the same warnings do not ring out again in the coming years.   http://www.savethechildren.net/news/more-57-million-children-under-five-brink-starvation-across-world   Dec. 2020   As 2021 approaches, UNICEF is deeply concerned for the health and well-being of over 10 million children projected to suffer from acute malnutrition next year in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), northeast Nigeria, the Central Sahel, South Sudan and Yemen.   These are all countries or regions experiencing dire humanitarian crises while also grappling with intensifying food insecurity, a deadly pandemic and potential famine.   “COVID-19 has turned a nutrition crisis into an imminent catastrophe,” said UNICEF. “Families already struggling to feed their children and themselves are now on the brink of famine. We can’t let them be the forgotten victims of 2020.”   In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an estimated 3.3 million children under five will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, including at least 1 million with severe acute malnutrition. These alarming figures are due to ongoing insecurity, the socioeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and limited access to essential services for vulnerable children and families.   In northeast Nigeria, more than 800,000 children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, including nearly 300,000 with severe acute malnutrition who are at imminent risk of death.   In the northwest of the country, the nutrition situation is even more dire. Kebbi State is experiencing a chronic malnutrition rate of 66 per cent, more than 20 per cent higher than Borno State in the northeast. In Sokoto State, also in Nigeria’s northwest, close to 18 per cent of children suffer from wasting and 6.5 per cent suffer from severe wasting.   In South Sudan, The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) update released earlier this month indicated a further deterioration of food security, with almost 7.3 million people – 60 per cent of the population – expected to be facing severe acute food insecurity in 2021. An estimated 1.4 million children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, the highest since 2013. Meanwhile, the number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition is expected to increase from about 292,000 children this year to over 313,000 children in 2021.   The increase in household food insecurity and acute malnutrition among children is attributed to ongoing conflict and insecurity, and limited access to essential nutrition, health care and water, sanitation and hygiene services. Flooding in some areas in 2020 has exacerbated the already high level of acute malnutrition among children.   In the Central Sahel countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, intensifying conflict, displacement and climate shocks will leave an estimated 5.4 million people struggling to meet their daily food needs during the next lean season. Acute food insecurity has increased by 167 per cent in Burkina Faso, 34 per cent in Mali and 39 per cent in Niger, compared with the five-year average.   The number of children suffering from acute malnutrition could rise by 21 per cent. This would bring the total number of malnourished children in the three countries to a staggering 2.9 million, including 890,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition.   Across Yemen, over 2 million children under five years of age suffer from acute malnutrition, including nearly 358,000 with severe malnutrition – a number that is expected to rise. In 133 districts in southern Yemen, home to 1.4 million children under five, recent analysis reveals a near 10 per cent increase in children with acute malnutrition between January and October 2020. This includes a more than 15 per cent increase – nearly 100,000 children – in cases of severe acute malnutrition. A similar analysis is being finalized for northern Yemen and alarming results are expected there as well.   In all these countries and beyond, UNICEF is urging humanitarian actors on the ground and the international community to urgently expand access to and support for nutrition, health and water and sanitation services for children and families.   UNICEF has appealed for more than US$1 billion to support its lifesaving nutrition programmes for children in countries affected by humanitarian crises over 2021.   http://www.unicef.org/reports/humanitarian-action-children-2021-overview   Nov. 2020   Malnutrition surges among young children in Yemen. (FAO, UNICEF, WFP)   Acute malnutrition rates among children under five are the highest ever recorded in parts of Yemen, with more than half a million cases in southern districts, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Malnutrition analysis released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and partners.   The analysis – which is for 133 districts in southern parts of Yemen only, home to 1.4 million children under five – reveals a near 10 percent increase in cases of acute malnutrition in 2020. The greatest increase is in cases of young children suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) with a 15.5 percent rise during 2020. This leaves at least 98,000 children under five at high risk of dying without urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition.   A dangerous combination of factors, driven by conflict and economic decline, compound the situation for Yemen’s youngest children. In the worst hit areas around one in five children are acutely malnourished. In Hodeidah’s lowlands, more than one in four or 27% of children are acutely malnourished.   At least a quarter of a million pregnant or breastfeeding women are also in need of treatment for malnutrition. UN experts warn the actual number is likely higher as the drivers of malnutrition in Yemen have worsened in 2020.   Yemen has long battled with some of the highest malnutrition rates in the world. Until now, humanitarian interventions to treat and prevent malnutrition, as well as provide emergency food assistance, have prevented an even more severe deterioration. But in 2020, these hard-won gains are being lost.   Escalating conflict and economic decline, plus the overwhelming impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, has pushed an already exhausted population to the brink. Add to this, many aid projects including emergency food assistance and WASH services have been disrupted by funding shortfalls. Malnutrition treatment programmes are also at risk if additional funds are not received soon.   These factors come on top of drivers that have historically made Yemen one of the hardest places to be a child or mother: insufficient and poor-quality diet; high prevalence of communicable diseases; elevated levels of food insecurity, limited access to nutrition and health services, poor sanitation and hygiene; and inability of many children to access to important vaccines, like measles and polio.   “We’ve been warning since July that Yemen is on the brink of a catastrophic food security crisis. If the war doesn’t end now, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing an entire generation of Yemen’s young children,” said Ms. Lise Grande, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen. “The data we are releasing today confirms that acute malnutrition among children is hitting the highest levels we have seen since the war started.”   http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/millions-childrens-lives-high-risk-yemen-inches-towards-famine http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/malnutrition-surges-among-young-children-yemen-conditions-worsen http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1152903/ http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/ http://www.rescue.org/press-release/humanitarian-leaders-call-global-donors-fund-nutrition-crisis-world-food-day http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/story/humanitarian-leaders-call-global-donors-fund-nutrition-crisis-world-food-day http://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/covid-19-increases-global-food-insecurity-less-children-are http://reliefweb.int/report/burkina-faso/call-action-wcar-time-act-now-child-nutrition-sahel-unicef-launches-nutrition http://www.icrc.org/en/document/nigeria-sharp-increase-food-prices-caused-covid-19-raises-fear-hunger Visit the related web page
	Conflict, climate change, COVID-19 threaten to push millions of people to the brink by WFP, OCHA, FAO, agencies   Sep. 2020   Remarks by UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley to UN Security Council session on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Segment on food security risks in DRC, Yemen, Northeast Nigeria and South Sudan):   Five months ago, I warned the UN Security Council the world stood on the brink of a hunger pandemic. A toxic combination of conflict, climate change and COVID-19, threatened to push 270 million people to the brink of starvation. Famine was real. It’s a terrifying possibility in up to three dozen countries if we don’t act.   In April, with our donors’ help, the global humanitarian community launched a unprecedented global fightback against the Coronavirus. Along with our partners, WFP is going all-out to reach as many as 138 million people this year – the biggest scale-up in our history. Already, in the first six months of 2020, we’ve reached 85 million people.   WFP is adapting and innovating to meet the unique demands of the pandemic. Launching new food and cash programmes to support the hungry in urban areas. Supporting over 50 governments to scale up their safety nets and social protection programmes for the most vulnerable. Getting nutritious food to millions of school children shut out of the classroom during lockdown.   Every day, we are succeeding in keeping people alive and avoiding a humanitarian catastrophe. But we’re not out of the woods. This fight is far, far, far from over – the 270 million people marching toward the brink of starvation need our help today more than ever.   We’re doing just about all we can do to stop the dam from bursting. But, without the resources we need, a wave of hunger and famine still threatens to sweep across the globe. And if it does, it will overwhelm nations and communities already weakened by years of conflict and instability.   This Council made a historic decision when it endorsed Resolution 2417 and condemned the human cost of conflict paid in suffering and hunger. The resolution called for effective early warning systems and, once more, I am here with my colleagues to sound the alarm.   The global hunger crisis caused by conflict, and now compounded by COVID-19, is moving into a new and dangerous phase – especially in nations already scarred by violence. The threat of famine is looming again, so we have to step up, not step back. Quite frankly, 2021 will be a make-or-break year.   I am truly worried about what will happen next year. I urge you – don’t walk away from our commitment to humanitarian assistance. Don’t turn your backs on the world’s hungriest people.   As COVID-19 pushed countries everywhere to lock down, the equivalent of 400 million full-time jobs have been destroyed, and remittances have collapsed. The impact has been felt hardest by the 2 billion people who work in the informal economy around the world - mainly in middle and low-income countries.   Already only one day’s work away from going hungry, in other words living hand to mouth. You and I have food in the pantry in a lockdown. We have enough food for two or three weeks. These people don’t have that luxury. If they miss a day’s wages, they miss a day’s worth of food and their children suffer.   They don’t have the money to buy their daily bread in those circumstances. This inevitably creates a risk of rising social tensions and instability.   It is critically important we balance sensible measures to contain the spread of the virus, with the need to keep borders open and supply chains going and trade flows moving. We also have to be vigilant and guard against unintended consequences, which could hit the poorest people the hardest.   In fact, in the 80-odd countries that we’re in, we’re working with the presidents, the prime ministers, the ministers of government, literally on an hourly basis, dealing with issues that are popping up because of quarantines and lockdowns, distribution points. We’re all learning from this and making headway.   But let me just give you a couple of examples, because a lot of people thought that the virus would be even more deadly in Africa. But it is definitely impacting Africa. We’re not out of the woods yet. And the good news is it hasn’t been as deadly but it has been devastating in other ways.   For example, the London School of Health and Tropical Medicine has analyzed the closure of vaccination clinics in Africa during lockdown. It calculated that, for every COVID-19 death prevented, as many as 80 children may die due to a lack of routine immunizations.   There is a grave danger that many more people will die from the broader economic and social consequences of COVID-19 than from the virus itself, especially in Africa. And the last thing we need is to have the cure be worse than the disease itself.   Your continued support for humanitarian programmes is critical right now. It’s a matter of life and death - literally. For millions of people in the countries being discussed today. And for many millions more in the other countries edging closer to the brink of starvation.   We know that, already, there are 30 million people who rely solely on WFP for their survival. That’s the only food they get. If they don’t get the food we provide, the die.   Let me turn to the countries on today’s agenda. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conflict and instability had already forced 15.5 million people into crisis levels of food insecurity. These are people on the brink of starvation.   The latest assessment indicates that the upsurge in violence, coupled with COVID-19, has sent this total sky-rocketing to nearly 22 million people, an increase of 6.5 million people. And I should warn you these numbers assume WFP is able to maintain current levels of food assistance. If we are forced to scale back operations, the outlook is even worse.   In Yemen, the world’s worst catastrophe, worst human disaster, it continues… years of conflict-induced hunger and now the COVID-19 pandemic. 20 million people are already in crisis due to war, a collapsed economy and currency devaluation, crippling food prices and the destruction of public infrastructure. We believe a further 3 million may now face starvation due to the virus.   Because of lack of funding, 8.5 million of our beneficiaries in Yemen only receive assistance now every other month. We will be forced to cut rations for the remaining 4.5 million by December if funds do not increase. You can only imagine the impact that will have on the Yemeni people.   The alarm bells in Yemen are ringing loud and clear, and the world needs to open its eyes to the Yemeni people’s desperate plight before famine takes hold. And that famine is knocking on the door right before our eyes.   Nigeria: COVID-19 is also forcing more people into food insecurity. Analysis shows measures imposed to contain the virus reduced incomes in 80 percent of households. You can imagine the devastation with that alone.   In the northeast of the country, 4.3 million people are food insecure, up by 600,000 largely due to COVID-19. While in the large urban area of Kano, the number of food insecure people during that lockdown period from March to June went from 568,000 to 1.5 million people – an increase of 1 million people. Very troubling.   South Sudan: The outlook there is similarly worrying, where even before the pandemic, 6.5 million people were expected to face severe food insecurity at the height of the lean season, made worse by the violence in Jonglei State in recent months. This has resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians, a large number of abducted women and children, and widespread loss of livestock and livelihoods. In addition, virus outbreaks in urban areas such as Juba could put as many as another 1.6 million people at risk of starvation.   Finally, even though it is not on today’s agenda, I also want to highlight the disaster unfolding in Burkina Faso, driven by the upsurge in violence. The number of people facing crisis levels of hunger has tripled to 3.3 million people, as COVID compounds the situation…displacement, security and access problems. For 11,000 of these people living in the northern provinces, famine is knocking on the door as we speak.   We know what we need to do. We have made huge strides forward in spotting the early warning signs of famine, in understanding its causes and consequences. But, tragically, we have seen this story play out too many times before.   The world stands by until it is too late, while hunger kills, it stokes community tensions, fuels conflict and instability, and forces families from their homes.   I recently learned that, in Latin America, hungry families have started hanging white flags outside their houses to show they need help. And there are a lot of them: 17.1 million severely food insecure people today, compared with 4.5 million only six or seven months ago.   A white flag is the sign of surrender - of giving up. Well, we CANNOT and we MUST NOT surrender, or tell ourselves there is nothing we can do, because millions of people around the world desperately need our help.   Truth is, we are all out of excuses for failing to act - swiftly and decisively - while children, women and men starve to death. Today, as humanitarians, we are here to warn you of the pressures caused by conflict and COVID-19. We must act and we must act before the dam bursts.   We need $4.9 billion to feed, for one year, all 30 million people who will die without WFP’s assistance.   It’s time for the private sector to step up. Worldwide, there are over 2,000 billionaires with a net worth of $8 trillion. In my home country, the USA, there are 12 individuals alone worth $1 trillion. In fact, reports state that three of them made billions upon billions during COVID! I am not opposed to people making money, but humanity is facing the greatest crisis any of us have seen in our lifetimes.   It’s time for those who have the most to step up, to help those who have the least in this extraordinary time in world history. To show you truly love your neighbour. The world needs you right now and it’s time to do the right thing.   Sep. 2020   Briefing to the Security Council by Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:   Two years ago, this Council passed Resolution 2417, asking that you be swiftly informed of the risk of conflict-induced famine and wide-spread food insecurity. And so I join you today, to highlight rising food insecurity and the risk of famine in several countries.   Famines have existed throughout human history, and almost every country has suffered them. But, remarkably, the world got much better at preventing them in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Famines are now less frequentand less lethal for three main reasons. First, agricultural output and productivity has expanded. Food has become more available and more affordable to millions of people.   Second, the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen significantly and their purchasing power has increased.   In recent decades, the extreme poverty rate dropped fromn early 36 percentof the global population in 1990 to 10 percentin 2015. And thirdly, when the threat of famine has arisen, countries and organizations have set aside their differences and shared knowledge and resources to avert the crises through decisive action.   Before COVID-19, which may unfortunately reverse previous gains, we had got to the point where the risk of famines was confined to places in conflict.   That is one of the reasons why Resolution 2417 is so important. It explicitly recognized the links between armed conflict, food insecurity and the threat of famine. And those links are clear. Conflict disrupts all aspects of life. Civilians are injured and killed. They are drivenfrom their homes, losing land and livelihoods.   Their farms, food supplies, livestock, infrastructure, and public services are damaged or destroyed. That drives up the price of food and other basic necessities like water and fuel.   Over time, conflict tears apart the social fabric, undermines public institutions and erodes economic growth and development. The human and economic cost is astronomical. In the ten most affected countries, the average costof conflict is estimated at around 40 per cent of GDP.   And we can now see that COVID-19 is making hunger much worse. We know from the 2019 report of the Global Network Against Food Crises that 135 million people were facing acute food insecurity even before COVID-19. And now David and his colleagues at the World Food Programme project that the number of people suffering from acute hunger will almost double this year, to 270 million people.   In the same vein, the World Bank predicts that the number of people in extreme poverty is set to rise for the first time since the 1990s. As always, the most vulnerable pay the biggest price--women, children, the disabled and the elderly.   I briefed you earlier in the week on two of them, South Sudan and Yemen. So I would like just to touch briefly on three other places.   I am particularly concerned about the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nearly 22million people there are now acutely food insecure,the highest number in the world-a result of COVID-19 compounding the impact of decades of conflict. In north-east Nigeria, as we told you, violence by extremist non-state armed groups is largely responsible for driving up humanitarian need.   I am pleased to report we have had constructive engagement in recent days with the Nigerian authorities, and the Government has taken some important steps to improve access to people in need, which we look forward to building on further.   In the Sahel, an upsurge in violence and armed group attacks has forcibly displaced more than a million people, most of whom are dependent on agriculture. In total, some 14 million people are experiencing crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity – the highest figures for adecade. Just in Burkina Faso, 3.3 million people are now acutely food-insecure, and famine conditions are growing.   As I told you on 9 September, the pandemic is dramatically increasing wider humanitarian need. Things are going to get worse. I don’t think we have seen the peak of the pandemic yet, but the indirect impact is already deepening poverty, destroying livelihoods, undermining education, disrupting immunization, and exacerbating food insecurity, fragility and violence.   Humanitarian aid helps to avert food insecurity. And humanitarian workers are committed to staying and delivering. But they face unacceptable risks. This year more than 200 humanitarian workers have been attacked, including dozens in countries I have mentioned today.   Humanitarian operations face repeated attacks and other forms of obstruction on movement and access. International humanitarian law is an important line of defense against food insecurity in conflict. Starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited, as is the destruction of objects that are indispensable to civilians’ survival.   The problem is that too many people don’t comply with the law. Parties must allow and facilitate humanitarian access and protect aid workers and assets.   Within the humanitarian system, we are doing what we can to meet growing needs. But the humanitarian agencies are in danger of being overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the needs, and that will get worse in the absence of a lot more financial help.   So there are concrete measures the Council and Member States more widely can take:   First, press for peaceful and negotiated political solutions to bring armed conflicts to an end. Second, ensure the parties to conflict respect international humanitarian law. And third, mitigate the economic impact of armed conflict and related violence, including by mobilizing international financial institutions.   And you know most important of all, scale up support for humanitarian operations, and take bigger and more ambitious steps to support the economies of countries facing severe, large-scale hunger.   Growing food insecurity is one of the major consequences of COVID-19. History proves that even in the midst of conflict, famine can be prevented. In order to prevent it, we must act. And we have to act in time to make a difference. Unfortunately, in too many places, time is now running out.   Sep. 2020   Urgent action needed to avert the risk of famine in Burkina Faso, South Sudan and Yemen, FAO Director-General tells UN Security Council:   The FAO Director-General has warned the United Nations Security Council that Burkina Faso, South Sudan and Yemen were at risk of a looming famine and appealed for an urgent and united humanitarian response to save lives and livelihoods.   "Tragically, there are many more situations where conflict and instability, now also exacerbated by COVID 19, are drivers for more serious hunger and acute food insecurity. This is particularly visible in areas where conflict and other factors such as economic turbulence, and extreme weather, are already driving people into poverty and hunger," he said.   In a briefing to the UN Security Council on conflict and hunger, he also underscored the dire situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, northern Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan.   "Worldwide, those hardest hit include the urban poor, informal workers and pastoral communities as well as people who are already particularly vulnerable - children, women, the elderly, the sick and people with disabilities," the FAO Director-General said.   He expressed deep concern about the latest data on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which shows that some 21.8 million people are unable to get enough food on a daily basis. This was "the highest number of people experiencing crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity ever recorded in a single country".   In Yemen, Desert Locusts have further threatened food availability. He also expressed "great alarm" about the worsening situation in Burkina Faso, where the number of people experiencing crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity has almost tripled.   In northern Nigeria, between June and August 2020, the number of people in crisis or facing emergency levels of acute food insecurity increased by 73 percent compared to the 2019 peak figure and reached almost 8.7 million, he said.   In Somalia, 3.5 million people face crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity between July and September 2020. This increase of 67 percent compared to the 2019 peak is due to the triple shocks experienced this year - COVID-19, floods and the desert locust upsurge.   In Sudan, the number of people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance has risen by 64 percent, between June and September 2020, reaching around 9.6 million people, the highest level ever recorded in the country, with serious floods further exacerbating the situation.   http://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-chief-warns-grave-dangers-economic-impact-coronavirus-millions-are-pushed-further-hunger http://reliefweb.int/report/world/wfp-global-response-covid-19-september-2020 http://bit.ly/2RzlLrG http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1308236/icode/ http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/05/world/africa/coronavirus-famine-warning-.html http://reliefweb.int/report/world/under-secretary-general-and-emergency-relief-coordinator-mark-lowcock-remarks-global http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/results/en/ http://bit.ly/30XbgnH http://fews.net/global/alert/july-31-2020 http://fews.net/covid-19-pandemic-impacts-food-security http://www.wfp.org/emergencies   * FAO/WFP Analysis - Acute Food Insecurity Hotspots (July 2020): http://bit.ly/30XbgnH   * Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analyses of food insecurity and malnutrition situations: http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/results/en/ Visit the related web page
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