Famine is the highest stage of misery, and it has human causes. Published on April 24, the 2024 edition of Global report on food crisesa joint and useful work of agencies of the UN, the European Union and the American USAID, reminds us of this.
This report shows that the “absolute food emergency” has started to rise again, most often linked to “the hand of man”, as we no longer say: essentially wars and social chaos.
The cause is not a problem of availability of food… The non-distribution to the most deprived and the hungry, in approximately a quarter of the countries of the world (analysed here) totaling one and a half billion inhabitants, is essentially political origin.
The highest stage of malnutrition, beyond which, literally, we die of hunger, the “absolute food emergency” affected 281 million people in 59 countries over the last year. In 2022, it was 257 million. In 2021, 193 million. At 281 million people in “extreme and urgent” situations, we are talking about 3.6% of the world population.
But more are considered poor (2 billion people or 25%) or very poor (800 million or 9%). Definitions vary greatly. For example, the World Bank uses three numerical thresholds to speak of absolute poverty, extreme poverty or simple poverty: US$2.30 per day, $3.65 and $6.85.
This last figure is the median income per capita on Earth: half earn more, the second half earn less. Some agencies will measure, more concretely, access to drinking water, a solid roof, and electricity. Other fundamental indicators, frequently used: the regression of major illnesses, access to primary and secondary education.
* * * *
However, in these matters, there is a global and structural fact that is too little known and too little reported, in this era where gloom is required and bad humor is obligatory, where the fear of war and climate change tends to obscure everything. the rest.
The world witnessed, during the first two decades of the 21ste century, to extraordinary progress, lifting millions of people out of extreme poverty, giving food to almost everyone, eradicating the last major diseases, such as poliomyelitis, with tens of thousands of people, literally every day for 25 years, escaping poverty, accessing drinking water, a roof, electricity.
The media attention given to three, four or five localized crises and conflicts – where the misery and injustice are glaring, the violence revolting – makes us forget what is happening elsewhere, and affects many more people.
During the first two decades of the 21st centurye century, roughly from 2000 to 2019, we witnessed, in relative terms (as a percentage of the world population) and in absolute terms… a marked decline in extreme poverty, food scarcity and the number of people who are hungry , in an emergency situation to find food this evening or tomorrow morning.
Severe poverty, according to the UN, overwhelmed 36% of humanity in 1988, 23% in 2000… 8 or 9% in 2022. And this, despite a near doubling of the world population in four decades.
Since 2019, it is true, certain statistics indicate a plateauing, or even a decline. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with its much-feared effects on the grain market, ultimately did not reduce the overall supply of food… And this, even if speculators had a field day 2022, with price increases (+20%, from 2022 to 2023, on the FAO food price index) occasionally contributing to increasing hunger in the most vulnerable places.
* * * *
This report is unique in that it lists situations of absolute scarcity, near-starvation, etc., linking them to specific political, military or social crises, analyzed according to their effects on the availability of food.
So featured in 2023, on the terrible front of empty stomachs: the drought in southern Africa, the war in Sudan, the social chaos in Haiti and – of course – the Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip. Induced hunger, hunger as a possible weapon of war.
We note in passing that, in other regions of the world ravaged by war – Ukraine attacked by Russia, the Burmese guerrillas united against the military dictatorship in Myanmar – there is bleeding and death, there are injustices, atrocities and major strategic issues… but no food problems.
In Southern Africa, it’s the weather. Climate change ? Perhaps, but also and above all the cyclical return of El Niño (the warm current of the South Pacific), directly implicated in the droughts which have been ravaging agriculture in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe for almost a year.
There are also the near-famines caused by the war. In 2023, it is Sudan, with a conflict which has opposed, for a year, the regular forces of the army and paramilitary groups. Sudan has the largest number of internally displaced people in the world… No fewer than 18 million Sudanese (40% of the population) are acutely food insecure, with “warlords” intercepting aid deliveries.
In Gaza, according to the report, almost the entire population of more than 2 million is on the verge of famine, caused by bombings, blockades and forced population displacements. Without forgetting Haiti, a country plagued by great poverty and political chaos for years… but where we still managed to eat, as best we could. Since 2023, this is no longer true: the bandit blockade around Port-au-Prince has stopped supplies.
Human misfortune, of human origin.
To contact the author: