Livelihoods

Global food security is deteriorating. Rising food and energy prices, conflict and the affects of climate change are all magnifying hunger and malnutrition worldwide.

In 2022, approximately 45 million people in 37 countries were projected to have so little to eat that they would be classified as severely malnourished—at risk of death or already facing starvation and death. The food crisis has tightened its grip on 19 “hunger hotspots”, including the world’s hardest-to-reach and fragile countries that need humanitarian support—countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.

Approximately nine million people die every year of hunger and hunger-related diseases, more than the deaths from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Over three million of those deaths are children under five. That’s nearly half of all deaths in children under age five.

The vulnerability of agriculture to natural hazards and disasters is a major driver of food insecurity and hunger. Between 2008 and 2018, crop and livestock production decline were estimated at approximately US$116.7 billion. Over that period, Asia was the hardest hit region, followed by Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Women and girls continue to be most affected by food insecurity. Gender inequality is a major cause and effect of hunger and poverty, with an estimated 60 per cent of chronically hungry people being women and girls. Between 2018 and 2021, the number of hungry women compared to hungry men grew 8.4 times. These disparities have long-term negative implications on young women’s growth and cognitive development.

High levels of income inequality and food costs put consuming a healthy diet out of reach for approximately three billion people in 2019, particularly the poor. That number is now expected to have increased— according to FAO’s Food Price Index, global food prices were 31.4 per cent higher in October 2021 compared to October 2020, and rose as much as 14.3 per cent between 2021 and 2022.

Large-scale food and nutrition crises can and should be a thing of the past—to make this a reality, we need strong collective leadership, political will and the right financing, with short-term emergency responses and longer-term commitments that address the underlying issues driving hunger. These efforts must all support human rights, peaceful resolutions to conflict and the gender-responsive transformation of food systems to become inclusive, sustainable and more resilient.

Extreme poverty was on a global decline—dropping from 10.1 per cent to 8.6 per cent between 2015 and 2018—but COVID-19, combined with the effects of conflict and climate change, have made a severe dent in that progress. Between 2019 and 2020, global poverty increased from 8.3 per cent to 9.2 per cent. This was the first rise in extreme poverty since 1998.

In June 2021, the World Bank noted that growth in 90 per cent of advanced economies was expected to regain pre-pandemic per capita income levels by 2022—yet only a third of emerging markets and developing economies would make the same recovery. The pandemic has hurt economic growth, especially in low-income countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, per capita income growth is forecast to remain subdued, averaging 0.4 per cent a year in 2021 and 2022, following a 5 per cent decline in 2020. Meanwhile, income inequality continues to increase, worsened by COVID-19.

Financial services—both formal and informal—are tools that can help people rise out of poverty, providing access to credit and savings, the ability to invest in education or businesses, and safety nets to weather financial emergencies. However, many living in poverty lack access to formal financial services like bank accounts. As of 2021,12 1.4 billion adults were “unbanked” around the world, most of them from developing economies. Women are over-represented, accounting for 56 per cent of all unbanked adults, and 30 per cent are young adults with lower education levels.

Education is an important factor in future economic success, yet there were 267 million young people not involved in employment, education or training even before the pandemic, with young women three times more likely than their male counterparts to be unemployed or out of school. In 2020, UNESCO estimated that 24 million children and youth were at risk of dropping out of school for financial reasons because of the pandemic.

Between climate change, urbanization and an overall lack of disaster preparedness worldwide, natural hazards like earthquakes and tsunamis are becoming increasingly catastrophic, causing death and economic losses. Women and girls are often disproportionately affected by these events—more vulnerable to threats and less able to access information or assistance—and the risk of disasters caused by natural hazards is rising.

The year 2020 rivalled 2016 as the world’s hottest year on record. It was dominated by climate-related disasters that were largely responsible for 389 recorded events, resulting in more than 15,000 deaths and US$171.3 million in economic losses. In 2020 there were 26 per cent more storms and 23 per cent more floods than previous annual averages. In Africa, floods affected seven million people and droughts were most heavily experienced in the Sahel region, affecting 13.4 million people in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

The practice of “disaster risk reduction” reduces vulnerability to disasters by identifying risks and making community-based and systemic changes that mitigate them. This work is vital to prevent needless deaths and to ensure that development work is sustainable.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development affirms the need to reduce the risks and effects of disasters. By doing so, there are opportunities to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through reducing vulnerability among the poor and building resilient infrastructure.