Aid in Action warns of the “grim” outlook in the fight against hunger due to the “flood” of global crises

Oct. 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The NGO Ayuda en Acción has warned of the “grim” panorama facing the situation of hunger due to the “flood” of global crises that are currently looming all over the world, even putting at risk the advances that had been achieved in previous decades.

The new alarm signal comes after the results of the latest Global Hunger Index for 2022 are known, which shows how “world progress against hunger has largely stagnated in recent years”, with a slight decrease in the scale of severity compared to 2014.

On this occasion, the figure stands at 18.2, which means moderate severity. However, the proportion of people without regular access to sufficient calories continues to rise. “Up to 828 million people had insufficient caloric intake in 2021,” the report pointed out.

In this sense, it is warned that if the situation is not reversed, neither the world as a whole nor 46 countries are expected to reach a low level of hunger by 2030, according to the scale, which predicts a worsening of the current situation due to the world crises that have been piling up in recent years –wars, climate change and the economic consequences of the pandemic–.

In turn, the war in Ukraine has caused an increase in the prices of food, fuel and fertilizers, which are unaffordable for many of these countries that were already facing a perilous humanitarian situation.

“There are at least 50 countries that depend directly on cereals and fertilizers from Russia and Ukraine,” said the director of incidents for Ayuda en Acción, Alberto Casado, in a meeting with the media.

“This is a reflection of the food system in which we live and how we depend on certain countries to acquire basic products”, so a change based on a local governance system seems essential to reverse this situation, Casado said.

ALARM IN SOUTH ASIA AND SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

On the GHI hunger severity scale, the Asian region, which includes countries such as Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, comes out on top, with one of the highest rates of stunting among the smallest, and by far the highest in child pathological weight loss compared to other countries in the world.

In West Asia, where hunger is moderate, there are “worrying signs” of a reversal of the gains made in recent years. A situation that repeats North Africa.

It is this continent where the ravages of hunger are most evident. In sub-Saharan Africa, insufficient caloric intake and infant mortality rates are the highest in the world, with regions in the eastern part of the continent facing one of the most severe droughts in the last 40 years.

Thus, once again, the threat of severe famine looms mainly over the Horn of Africa, while humanitarian aid remains insufficient. In Somalia, South Sudan and Burundi, the level is “provisionally alarming”, while in the heart of the continent — Chad, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo — it is already alarming.

Madagascar, also in Africa, or Yemen and Syria, complete this list. In another 35 countries, hunger is considered severe, while in another 20 the situation is getting worse since 2014. However, there are 32 countries that have seen significant improvements in their scores. In other places such as Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Europe the level of severity is low.

UGANDA, HUNGER AND CHILD MARRIAGES

The situation in Uganda is like that of many other countries around it, weak governance, struggle for resources, and recurring conflicts. Added to this is the migration and refugee crisis fleeing from countries such as South Sudan, which affects access to resources in a country that survives largely thanks to subsistence agriculture.

In turn, the director of Ayuda en Acción in Uganda, Francisco López, has warned that this and other countries, such as Kenya, have the particularity that their girls and younger women are more likely to be victims of other collateral damage caused by the famine, as are forced marriages.

They are forced to drop out of school, in the worst case without completing primary education, which will affect their decision-making power and autonomy in the future.

López explained that the NGO is carrying out awareness campaigns and working with local leaders and authorities to try to show the need for girls and young women to finish their studies as a factor that will have a positive impact on the communities in which they live. .

“We are aware of local customs” and for this reason “we have actively moved by contacting authorities and other local actors to learn about those subtleties that escape us as foreigners,” says López, who acknowledges that these “social dynamics are very difficult to reverse. short term”.

López has delved into pedagogy to “let families know that it is in everyone’s interest to let girls finish their education.”

LATIN AMERICA, A WORRYING SETBACK

Although the level of hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean is considered low, in recent years there has been a “worrying” setback in the standards that had managed to get the region out of the problems of previous years.

The director of the Ayuda en Acción delegation in Guatemala, Ada Gaitán,
He explained that this increase in hunger levels is framed in the different crises that have been taking place worldwide.

However, it has revealed that the situation in several countries, such as “the dramatic worsening” of Venezuela, with one of the worst humanitarian crises of today that is reflected in a global hunger rate in 2022 of 19.9 percent compared to 8.1 in 2014, or the stagnation in Ecuador, Haiti, or Suriname, affects the global indices of the region.

In the case of Guatemala, only behind Hiatí in the region, Gaitán lamented that one in two children suffers from malnutrition, a problem, he explained, that is much more evident in rural areas with little access to basic services and in communities indigenous people, where figures can reach up to 80 percent.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

The report ends by emphasizing the need to address the problem of hunger worldwide with new approaches and carrying out policies that allow building a more resilient and sustainable world, such as “inclusive governance” that emphasizes the participation of local authorities and civil society.

“A local approach is especially needed in fragile states where national governments cannot wield power.” This leadership can be exercised by civil society or by peasants, who are usually more aware of natural resources, or the methods of agriculture and livestock in their environment.

Ayuda en Acción insists in its conclusions on the need to involve those who suffer the most from hunger in decision-making, through training of their faculties, as well as with the support of local communities, more aware of the environment that surrounds them, which the central governments, more subject to the policies and decisions that are taken in the great international summits.

For Casado “this crisis is putting the concept of multilateralism at risk”, since it is causing the States to influence a “national scope” vision, a protectionist strategy that causes a rise in food prices that the most vulnerable families vulnerable cannot assume.