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Once again, the world is faced with a very serious global food crisis which affects the poorest and most fragile countries with exceptional severity. The experts’ projections* tell us that this year the estimated number of people in a situation of serious and very serious food insecurity has exceeded 200 million in a group of 45 countries subject to constant monitoring. On the rise for the fourth consecutive year.
Many regions in which CISP operates are involved in a particularly serious way: in the Horn of Africa, drought has affected vast regions between Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, where the international community is about to declare famine for some areas. In West Africa and the Sahel, the number of people affected by the food crisis has increased by 41% compared to 2021.
In Central and Southern Africa, we are talking about at least 43 million people.
In the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America, the economic crisis has radically reduced access to food for the poorest populations. The increase in international needs makes it more difficult to find the resources to assist populations who survive through this tool. This is the case, for instance, of refugees who have lived, sometimes for decades, in refugee camps.
We are quite familiar with the global and specific causes: situations of conflict and insecurity that have often been going on for many years force people to flee, prevent them from cultivating their fields, finding income opportunities, accessing markets, or receiving assistance. The global economic crisis resulting from the pandemic has had a devastating impact on trade, food prices, incomes and purchasing power. The conflict in Ukraine has had a heavy impact, for example, on the price of cereals and fertilizers. It is the crisis of global value chains: international links connecting the activities of a production cycle from raw material to finished products and their marketing. In recent decades the system has privileged and invested precisely in developing those great international trade chains that are now in crisis. Once again, small and very small producers in the poorest countries have been sidelined by such processes with a serious impact on poverty and inequality.
Finally, extreme climatic phenomena, drought, floods, but also the unpredictability of rains due to climate change hit harder the poorest, often small farmers without sufficient resources to get back on track after a bad season.
These global phenomena are difficult for rich societies to manage; and they easily translate into tragedy for structurally vulnerable communities.
The ability and willingness of the international community to guarantee immediate humanitarian assistance in such situations is crucial, but it is also a matter of strengthening the populations’ resilience in the face of the crisis and continuing to support the local development processes that allow communities to get out of the trap of misery and vulnerability.
Global phenomena that are measured by very large figures translate into the condition of families, individuals, and communities.
We have decided to reserve a regular space on these pages, in the coming months, to tell you about those situations. We want to explain what the CISP does to support those communities in emergency situations, but also in their efforts to provide themselves with food security and prospects for a better future. We want to translate large figures into stories of people and communities. We believe you want to learn about them, too.
Keep following us on these pages to learn their stories.
*Global Report on Food Crises, as of 30 June 2022