Livelihoods

Food security is increasingly challenging for people around the world. Rising food and energy prices, global conflicts, and the effects of climate change are all magnifying hunger and malnutrition worldwide. An estimated 238 million people in 48 countries are facing high levels of acute food insecurity—countries like Somalia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That’s an increase of 21.6 million more people since 2022.

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.

Geopolitical conflicts also continue to impact food security. Even though food prices were increasing before the war in Ukraine, studies found that the conflict would lead to a 60 per cent trade drop, 50 per cent increase in wheat prices and severe food insecurity with decreased purchasing power for wheat, especially for countries that rely on wheat imports. Although inflation began to slow in September 2022, food inflation rates still remain higher in most countries compared to levels before the Ukraine conflict started. Women and girls continue to be most affected by food insecurity. Gender inequality is a major cause and effect of hunger and poverty, with six out of every 10 chronically hungry persons being female.

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, cognitive development and opportunities for the future.

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 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 recently on a global decline, dropping from 10.1 per cent to 8.6 per cent between 2015 and 2018. But the effects of conflict, climate change and the high cost of living have severely stunted the gains made. 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. Slow economic recovery, the high cost of living and inflation have widened the inequality gap between the poor and rich. The poorest people bore the steepest pandemic costs. Income loss averaged 4 per cent among the poorest 40 per cent, double the losses of the wealthiest 20 per cent. Global inequality rose, as a result, for the first time in decades.

Formal and informal financial services are tools that can help people rise out of poverty by 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, 1.4 billion adults were “unbanked” around the world, most of them from developing economies.

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

Approximately one billion children live in one of the 33 countries classified as “extremely high-risk” for climate change impacts. Between climate change, urbanization and an overall lack of disaster preparedness worldwide, natural hazards like droughts, floods, 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.

June, July and August was the hottest three-month period in recorded history. The global average temperature in July was 1.1 degrees Celsius hotter compared to the average of the last 100 years. Countries like Chile, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan are facing the worst droughts in decades. In 2022, there were 387 natural hazards and disasters recorded around the world, affecting 185 million people and costing an estimated US$223.8 billion in economic losses.

Driven in part by climate shocks, the largest global food crisis in modern history is unfolding. Acute food insecurity is escalating, and by the end of 2022 at least 222 million people across 53 countries were expected to face acute food insecurity and need urgent assistance. Starvation is a very real risk for 45 million people in 37 countries.

The practice of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) 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.

Although World Vision provides relief after a disaster occurs, our approach is to prevent losses and alleviate the impact of disasters by managing or reducing the conditions of hazard, exposure and vulnerability whenever possible. This requires identifying and decreasing the underlying drivers of risk, including poor economic development, environmental degradation, poverty, inequality and climate change. In turn, this approach mitigates disaster risks, lessens the impacts of climate change and, ultimately, makes development more sustainable.