Daily hunger

There would be enough food in the world for everyone, yet every year hundreds of thousands of malnourished children die avoidable deaths.
Globally, 783 million people suffer from hunger: this is a greater number of people than those who live in the European Union and the United States of America combined. Compared to the data recorded just four years ago, before the Covid pandemic, the universe of those who do not have enough food has increased by a number equal to 122 million people: conflicts, climate changes, structural inequalities, and the same consequences of pandemic, are among the causes of this worsening.

The data coming from the United Nations and its agencies show how the determination and funding necessary to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development goal of eliminating hunger by 2030 is in fact lacking. A goal that will not be achieved and therefore will have to be updated. As has already, unfortunately, happened in the past.

But there is another interesting aspect to highlight. As the Financial Monitoring Service of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Population Monitoring Tool for the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) point out, if we take the 17 countries that in 2022 were facing the worst levels of hunger, and for which calls were made for immediate funding of actions to combat food shortages, it turns out that in reality none of these calls were entirely satisfied. Only 12 percent of hunger-related programs received more than half of the necessary and requested financial resources. In these 17 states (these are Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen) the general proportion it speaks of 35% of requests for financial aid being satisfied, and therefore 65% remaining unheard. According to calculations, over 8 billion euros would be needed to completely finance the appeals relating to the hunger emergency of the 17 countries most in difficulty, or - the comparison is dismaying, as always happens in these cases - the same amount that it is estimated that the Italians for Christmas gifts in 2023.

At the beginning of 2024, therefore, the overall picture of the planet (in addition to the 17 states most in difficulty, evidently, many other nations are also experiencing critical issues related to the lack of availability of food) is that of one in ten people on the face of the Earth for whom hunger is a daily challenge and concern. Africa, Western Asia, the Caribbean are the places where the difficulties are greatest.

Stefano Caredda
NP February 2024