Hunger amidst the feasts

World over, it is a time of mists and feasts. However, the season’s joys should not mask the plight of those who are struggling for a decent meal. The UN finds that one in three people globally do not have access to adequate food. Over 2.3 billion people — 30% of the world’s population — lack year-round access to food. This indicator rose in 2020 by as much as in the preceding five years combined.
Asia is home to over half the world’s hungry people while a third live in Africa. While billions of adults find hunger impacting every capability in their lives — for every 10 food-insecure men, there are 11 women — the effects on children extend deeper.

UNICEF estimates wasting or life-threatening malnutrition affects over 45.4 million children under five — a stunted child means stunted societies where millions couldn’t achieve their full potential. Thus, the UN estimates its Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 — zero hunger by 2030 — will be missed by a huge margin of 660 million people.




The Covid-19 pandemic’s economic disruptions are powerfully driving this rise in global hunger. But there are other factors too. Climate change, manifest in extreme rain or droughts, is impacting agriculture worldwide. As unseen weather conditions make crops fail, conflicts are rising over scarce food.



The World Food Program finds conflict is a major driver in eight out of ten countries with alarming hunger levels — for the first time in history, four simultaneous famines, in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, could be driven by conflict. This is a warning bell for our entire planet which faces climate change.



However, multiple mitigations are possible. As Times Evoke’s global experts emphasise, interventions, from peace-building to social protection policies focused on food access, can make an immediate difference. Longer-term mitigations include crop diversification to more resilient plants and changing supply chains to lower the prices of nutritious food — currently, healthy diets are simply out of reach for three billion people. Nature gives us enough to feed everyone. The prevalence of hunger shows damaged systems restricting food. Join Times Evoke in a journey to understand how these systems can be repaired.