Paradigm shift needed in response to rising acute food insecurity

FAO Director of Emergencies and Resilience, Rein Paulsen, briefed on the findings of the Global Report on Food Crisis 2022.

Briefing journalists from New York, FAO Director of Emergencies and Resilience, Rein Paulsen, connected virtually from Rome to discuss the latest figures and trends outlined in the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2022 released today.

Paulsen was joined by the Chief Economist of the World Food Programme (WFP), Arif Husain. They shed light on the alarming upward trend of acute food insecurity, touching on key policy implications for humanitarian response and food crisis response moving forward.

The Report revealed that in 2021, there were around 193 million people facing acute food insecurity at Crisis or worse levels (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above), bringing the number of people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance across 53 countries and territories to a six-year high. This represents an increase of 40 million people facing acute food insecurity compared to 2020, which was a record-breaking year in acute hunger as per the Global Report on Food Crises.

These figures are the latest in a seemingly unrelenting upward trend, showing that since the first iteration of the Report, the number of acutely food insecure (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) people has nearly doubled between 2016 and 2021.

Global hunger trends continue to deteriorate, driven by conflict, climate and COVID-19

The key drivers of hunger, displacement and food insecurity – i.e. manmade conflict, weather extremes, rising food prices, marked inequalities, and economic shocks and downturns – call for a more inter-sectoral approach to financing and delivering emergency response in food crisis contexts, Paulsen said, pointing to the need to working across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus in addressing the root causes of hunger.

Of particular alarm on the heels of this year’s GRFC is that over half a million people (570 000) in Ethiopia, southern Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen were classified in the most severe phase of acute food insecurity – Catastrophe (IPC/CH Phase 5) – and required urgent action to avert widespread collapse of livelihoods, starvation and death.

“We need to redouble investments in famine prevention and we need to redouble investment in agriculture as part of famine prevention,” Paulsen said.  Agriculture needs a more prominent role in humanitarian response, he added, especially when two-thirds of those facing food insecurity live in rural areas where they overwhelmingly rely on agriculture for their survival.

War in Ukraine: global food insecurity outlook likely to deteriorate in 2022

Even though the analysis leading to the 2022 GRFC predates the start to the war in Ukraine, the findings already lay bare the interconnected nature and fragility of our agrifood systems.

Indeed, the war in Ukraine has already caused disruptions to food and agricultural input supply chains, with fields destroyed or inaccessible, farmers displaced and vital infrastructure damaged.

Its impact on global food and agriculture input markets is alarming, as are the likely higher food import bills for countries that fall into the Least Developed Country (LDC) and Low-Income Food-Deficit Country (LIFDC) groups and who depend on imports to meet their food needs. The Horn of Africa is one such example, a region facing the worst drought in recent history, already decimating livelihoods and heightening the risk of looming famine.

Rethinking funding flows for food crisis response and prevention

Despite compelling evidence that points to increasingly upward acute food insecurity trends, funding for agriculture has lagged. In 2020, agriculture and support to livelihoods received only 8 percent of total humanitarian financing for overall food sectors (including food security – mainly in the form of cash or in-kind food assistance – agriculture and nutrition). Humanitarian assistance for agriculture and livelihoods was the least funded of the food sectors, and it decreased by more than 50 percent since 2016.

Current trends of increasing acute insecurity, together with a declining global trend in funding, is a huge concern, Paulsen stressed.

In 2020, there was USD 8.1 billion collectively available for humanitarian assistance to food sectors in food crisis settings – a 25 percent decrease than funding levels from 2017. There is a need to change this trend, Paulsen said, in particular, as investing in agriculture and rural livelihoods is strategic and cost-effective.

FAO is urgently seeking support to mobilize USD 1.5 billion to support 50 million of the world’s most food insecure who cannot afford to wait any longer for life-saving assistance.

Related links

• Watch the recording from the press briefing.
• Read the full report and review the key messages and findings.
• Learn more about the Global Network against Food Crises here.
• Read the latest on FAO’s response to the crisis in Ukraine and in other emergency response contexts here.