World Food Day - Hunger in the Horn of Africa

by Michael Bear · 2008-10-16 17:10:00 UTC
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October 16th is World Food Day, and so seems appropriate to take a moment to look at recent statistics about world hunger. Over the past few years, an 83% increase in food prices worldwide has sparked a global food crisis, by some accounts the worst since the 1970s.

Overall, the World Bank estimates that there are currently 967 million malnourished people in the world.

One of the hardest-hit regions has been the Horn of Africa, which is also suffering a devastating drought.  Yesterday, CARE released a statement that 17 million people face starvation in the region.

This includes 6.4 million Ethiopians who require emergency food assistance, in addition to millions more in Kenya, Somalia and Sudan. (For a map showing the extent of the drought, click here.)  West Africa is also among the most food insecure-regions in the world.

The World Food Program has announced that it is preparing to feed an additional 30 million people next year, yet many humanitarian agencies say that the overall donor response so far has been inadequate.

[For more information on how the financial crisis impacts humanitarian funding, click here.]

In addition to rapidly increasing food prices and drought, the situation is made all the worse by conflict.  The British Red Cross reports that "households in countries affected by armed conflict spend as much as 75% of their income on food".  By comparison, the average person in the UK only spends 15% of their income on food.

All that said, there have been significant improvements over the past twenty years.  The Global Hunger Index Report for 2008 shows that hunger and malnutrition worldwide have declined since 1990.  Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Near East and North Africa have shown the most improvement, followed by South Asia.

According to the report:

"Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia share the highest regional GHI scores (23.3 and 23.0 respectively), but food insecurity in the two regions stems from different sources. In South Asia, the major problem is a high prevalence of underweight in children under five, which stems from the lower nutritional and educational status of women. In contrast, the high GHI in Sub-Saharan Africa is due to high child mortality and a high proportion of people who cannot meet their calorie requirements. Low government effectiveness, conflict, and political instability, as well as high rates of HIV/AIDS, have driven these two indicators."

For more information, see:

- World Food Day 2008 (FAO, 2008)

- Global Hunger Index: The Challenge of Hunger 2008 (Concern, IFPRI, Welthungerhilfe, October 2008)

- Living in the Edge of Emergency (CARE UK, September 2008)

- Global Food Crisis 2008 (Global Issues)

Image: Karamoja District, northeastern Uganda - Photo from Time Magazine

Michael Bear
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