Livelihoods

Our world is in the midst of a global hunger crisis. With conflict, climate change and the enduring economic impacts of COVID-19, families are struggling to access enough safe, nutritious food for basic human health and development.

In 2021, 41 million4 people—approximately half of them girls and boys—were at risk of starvation in 43 countries, with 584,000 people enduring famine-like conditions in Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen. This is a crisis that often goes unnoticed, because much of the worsening hunger is concentrated in the world’s hardest to reach, most dangerous places where humanitarian access is difficult.

We know from past emergencies, such as the 2011 Somalia famine in which 258,000 people are estimated to have died, that approximately half had already perished by the time a declaration of famine was made, and that half of all those who died were children younger than five years old.

The vulnerability of agriculture to natural hazards and disasters is a major driver of hunger and food insecurity. Between 2008 and 2018, approximately $108.5 billion US was lost because of declines in crop and livestock production in both least developed and lower- and middle-income countries following disasters. Over that period, Asia was the hardest hit region, followed by Africa, then Latin America and the Caribbean.

Women continue to be the face of food insecurity, with moderate or severe food insecurity being 10% higher among women than men in 2020, a 4% increase from 2019. With high levels of income inequality and food costs, consuming a healthy diet was out of reach for approximately 3 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% higher in October 2021 compared to October 2020.

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 transformation of food systems to become inclusive, sustainable and more resilient.

The world has seen a decline in global poverty, especially since 1998. However, the rate of that decline has been slowing, driven largely by armed conflicts and climate change.

In June 2021, the World Bank noted that growth in 90% 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’s severe outbreaks and increasingly transmissible virus strains is hurting economic growth, especially in low-income countries where vaccine access remains low. In sub-Saharan Africa, per capita income growth is forecast to remain subdued, averaging 0.4% a year in 2021 and 2022, following a 5% decline in 2020. Meanwhile, income inequality continues to increase, worsened by COVID-19.

Financial services are a tool 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 services like bank accounts that can help in these ways. As of 2017, 1.7 billion adults were “unbanked” around the world, most of them from developing economies. Women are over-represented, accounting for 56% of all unbanked adults, and 30% 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. Children are often disproportionately affected in these events, 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 $171.3 million US in economic losses. In 2020 there were 26% more storms and 23% 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 the development work of organizations like World Vision 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.