Category Archives: Hunger

Criticism of animal farming in the west risks health of world’s poorest | Emma Naluyima Mugerwa and Lora Iannotti

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In the developing world most people are not factory farming and livestock is essential to preventing poverty and malnutrition

The pandemic has pushed poverty and malnutrition to rates not seen in more than a decade, wiping out years of progress. In 2020, the number of people in extreme poverty rose by 97 million and the number of malnourished people by between 118 million and 161 million.

Recent data from the World Bank and the UN shows how poverty is heavily concentrated in rural communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America where people are surviving by smallholder farming. This autumn there will be two key events that could rally support for them.

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Afghanistan could start to run out of food by September, UN warns

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World Food Programme calls for urgent aid as chaos of Taliban takeover and second drought in three years create dire humanitarian situation

UN agencies have warned of food shortages to Afghanistan as early as September without urgent aid funding, as it emerged first aid supplies, including surgical equipment and severe malnutrition kits, were stuck due to restrictions at Kabul airport.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday the closure of the airport to commercial flights has held up key deliveries.

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‘Nothing to eat’: Somalia hit by triple threat of climate crisis, Covid and conflict

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Overlapping crises have pushed the fragile east African country to the ‘cusp of humanitarian catastrophe’, with one in four facing food insecurity

Such was the horror that erupted in her village earlier this year that Fadumo Ali Mohamed decided she had no choice but to leave. Through the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia, she walked for 30 kilometres, along with her nine children, eventually getting help to reach the capital by car.

Now in Mogadishu, she is one of more than 800,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in the capital living in cramped, informal settlements with limited access to food, water and healthcare. She doesn’t like to recall the violence she fled.

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Hunger sweeps India in Covid’s shadow as millions miss out on rations

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Desperation grows for those unable to access subsidised food, as worst hunger in two decades reported

When India’s devastating second wave of Covid-19 struck in April, Nazia Habib Khan’s second marriage abruptly came to an end after a year of beatings and abuse. The 28-year-old daughter of migrants from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh returned to live with her mother, brothers and a sister-in-law in Mumbai.

Their 40 sq metre (400 sq ft) home in Kurla East stands huddled among the 800 or so brick, tin sheet and tarpaulin houses of Qureshi Nagar, the entire shanty town trembling when a train roars past on a nearby railway line.

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Almost one in three globally go hungry during pandemic – UN

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Big leap in malnutrition during Covid, with fifth of children now believed to be stunted, report warns

The number of people who did not have enough food to eat rose steeply during the Covid-19 pandemic to include almost a third of the world, according to a new UN report published on Monday.

Five UN agencies said the number of people without access to healthy diets grew by 320 million last year to nearly 2.37 billion people– more than the increases in the previous five years combined.

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‘On bad days, we don’t eat’: Hunger grows for thousands displaced by conflict in Chad

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As war forces more to flee, humanitarian organisations facing funding shortfalls and increasing demand are unable to keep pace

The number of people having to leave their homes in the Lake Chad region of central Africa has more than doubled over the past year with agencies warning they are struggling to feed people.

The fighting, which last month claimed the life of the president of Chad, Idriss Déby, has displaced more than 400,000 Chadians, according to the International Organization for Migration, a rise from 169,000 at the start of 2020. More than 65,000 people were displaced in the first quarter of this year.

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At least 1m people facing starvation as Madagascar’s drought worsens

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People eating termites and clay as UN says acute malnutrition has almost doubled this year in south

Madagascar’s worst drought in 40 years has left more than a million people facing a year of desperate food shortages.

The south of the island will produce less than half its usual harvest in the coming months because of low rains, prolonging a hunger crisis already affecting half the Grand Sud area’s population, the UN estimates.

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Over 30 million people ‘one step away from starvation’, UN warns

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The pandemic, climate crisis and conflict combining to drive ‘alarming’ levels of global hunger, says report

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    • Acute hunger is likely to soar in more than 20 countries in the next few months, the UN has warned.

    Families in pockets of Yemen and South Sudan are already in the grip of starvation, according to a report on hunger hotspots published by the agency’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).

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    DRC is rich with farmland, so why do 22 million people there face starvation? | Vava Tampa

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    For two decades the global community has stood by while militia groups have got away with killing, raping and looting

    I was food shopping when I read the news. Nearly 22 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are facing starvation and malnutrition. Now. In 2021.

    You have to wonder how a country with eight months of rain, more than 50% of all the rivers, lakes and wetlands in Africa, and more agricultural land than any African country, with the potential to feed up to 2 billion people, gets to the point where it is unable to feed its population of 100 million.

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    ‘Fighting for life’: Bangladesh shrimp farmers destitute in wake of cyclone

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    Natural disaster compounded by the collapse of a lucrative export during the pandemic has thrust people into poverty

    This time last year the west coast of Bangladesh was a thriving place for shrimp farmers. It was a decent enough living and there was a healthy export market.

    Majnu Sardar, who lives in Koyra upazila (administrative region) in Khulna district, used to earn enough to feed, clothe and educate his family of six. Now they are living in a small mud hut, with a canopy of leaves as a roof, on the banks of the Kapotaksha River after Cyclone Amphan buried his house and land in May.

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    How Covid could be the ‘long overdue’ shake-up needed by the aid sector

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    Analysis: as need outstrips funding, experts are making the case for overhauling ‘old-fashioned’ donor-recipient narratives

    This year one in every 33 people across the world will need humanitarian assistance. That is a rise of 40% from last year, according to the UN. More than half of the countries requiring aid to help deal with the coronavirus pandemic are already in protracted crises, coping with conflict or natural disasters.

    Even before Covid-19 threw decades of progress on extreme poverty, healthcare and education into reverse, aid budgets were heading in the wrong direction. In 2020, the UN had just 48% of its $38.5bn (£28bn) in funding appeals met, compared with 63% of $29bn sought in 2019.

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    Four chicken heads a dollar: how one Harare grandmother scratches a living in lockdown

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    Staying home means starvation for many Zimbabweans, and those forced to work face police raids and dwindling custom

    Pammula Chiunya, 68, is sitting under an open-sided shed outside a makeshift beer hall in Hopley settlement, six miles (10km) west of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. She is not happy.

    Chiunya serves roasted chicken heads in a twist of old newspaper to a visibly drunk man, then settles to wait for someone else to emerge from the shebeen, which is crammed with animated revellers dancing to loud music. Customers are elusive, even with her prices: four heads for a dollar.

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    ‘Back empty-handed’: Bangladeshis cut off from jobs abroad face rising poverty

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    Whole communities supported by overseas work are at risk of extreme poverty after the pandemic forced thousands home

    When the pandemic forced Firoza Begum back to Bangladesh after six months trapped in her employer’s house without pay, her husband was so angry she had returned empty-handed that he would not let her move back in to the family home.

    All her savings after 14 years working in the Middle East had been spent escaping her abusive employer.

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    Decades of progress on extreme poverty now in reverse due to Covid

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    Analysis: The pandemic, combined with the climate crisis and crippling debt burdens, has led to an ‘unprecedented increase’ in poverty, experts warn

    Two decades of progress in the reduction of extreme poverty, the elimination of which is one of the sustainable development goals, have been pushed into a sharp reverse by a combination of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the growing climate emergency and increasing debt.

    With the World Bank warning of a “truly unprecedented increase” in levels of poverty this year, and renewing calls for debt forgiveness, experts are warning of a growing crisis in multiple areas from education to employment, likely to be felt for years to come.

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    Ten years after the Arab spring, Yemen has little hope left

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    Racked by war, cholera and now coronavirus, the country faces the world’s worst famine in decades

    Ten years after the rage and hope of the Arab spring filled the public spaces of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital has become a curiously quiet place.

    Traders and customers alike shuffle through the streets of the old city, ground down by the repression of the Houthi rebel occupation and the economic hardship caused by the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition blockade.

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    ‘The lockdown was political’: Chad under strain ahead of election

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    Opposition cries foul as Covid restrictions cut off incomes and health care in country where two-thirds live in severe poverty

    For Abdulgadir Sanousi the decision to lock down the capital of Chad was “a nightmare”. His work driving from N’Djamena to Moundou in the south four times a week dried up overnight. This month any work has involved bribing police to let him through the checkpoints at N’Djamena’s four main entry points.

    “The situation is just a nightmare for us. We are faced with difficulties by the police. In order to deal with them you need to bribe them, if not they would confiscate your vehicle,” says 27-year-old Sanousi.

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    Landlocked Lesotho faces food crisis amid Covid border closures

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    Food price increases and economic impact of lockdowns have left a quarter of the kingdom’s population reliant on food aid, UN warns

    Almost a quarter of Lesotho’s population will require food aid between January and March as a result of Covid-19 restrictions, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned.

    More than 580,000 people out of a population of 2.2 million are estimated to be food insecure, despite predictions of normal to above average rains this year and the potential for above average cereal production.

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    PlayStation 5 launch gets more coverage ‘than 10 humanitarian crises combined’

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    Charity says the media is failing countries by underreporting humanitarian emergencies, with women suffering most

    The launch of PlayStation 5 received 26 times more news attention than 10 humanitarian crises combined in 2020, according to a Care International report published today.

    The humanitarian crises, which included violence in Guatemala, hunger in Madagascar and natural disasters in Papua New Guinea, were largely swept aside by news of Covid-19, global Black Lives Matter protests and more clickbait-friendly events such as the Eurovision song contest and Kanye West’s bid for the US presidency; the latter two each received 10 times more online news attention than the humanitarian crises in question, the report found.

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    Covid billionaires should help starving people, says charity boss

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    Head of World Food Program USA says 235 million people ‘marching toward starvation’

    Billionaires whose wealth has soared during the coronavirus pandemic should stump up to provide emergency aid to the record numbers of people facing starvation, the head of a US charity supporting the World Food Programme has said.

    Related: Billionaires' wealth rises to $10.2 trillion amid Covid crisis

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    Zimbabwe enters Covid lockdown amid fears over crowded new year parties

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    Panic over infection rates mixed with fear of widespread hunger as 30-day shutdown is imposed after people defy ban on gatherings

    Parties and new year celebrations that attracted thousands of revellers with little social distancing or mask wearing have triggered panic and a strict 30-day national lockdown in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

    On New Year’s Eve thousands of people gathered at Matapi, Mbare, one of Zimbabwe’s oldest townships for a dancehall concert, while thousands of others held parties across the city despite a police ban.

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