World Food Day: rising global food insecurity

The world Thursday October 16 commemorated World Food Day. 

This year the UN took stock of the present situation in light of the Covid-19 pandemic which it says has increased food insecurity- particularly in Africa.

The World Food Program, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020, reports 73 million people are affected by malnutrition in Africa.

Oxfam the international aid group warns the situation is dire. Its latest warning given in the report called "Later will be too late"

In 2017, after a large-scale food crisis, the international community had put forward a plan to address the situation. Three years later, food insecurity has reached extreme levels.

 In Afghanistan, but also in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Southern Sudan, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Somalia, i.e. in six of the seven countries where the situation of food insecurity is the most worrying.... and the financial aid promised by the donor states has still not arrived.

Food security is a state in which “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

Africa, according the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment, as almost 20 percent of its 1.2 billion population goes hungry.

On a global scale, the current health crisis and economic recession could plunge half a billion people into poverty. According to NGOs, more than 12,000 people could die of hunger every day before the end of the year.