Rising hunger

The 2020s have, thus far, been a decade of rising hunger. According to the Global Report on Food Crises, a UN-backed report, more than 295 million people faced acute hunger last year, a new high driven by conflict along with other crises. This was the sixth consecutive annual increase in people hit with ‘high levels’ of acute food insecurity. The 295.3 million people who suffered acute hunger last year account for almost a quarter of the population in 53 of the 65 countries analysed in the report, highlighting the vast scale of the hunger problem. This was significantly higher than the 281.6 million people suffering from acute hunger in 2023. Even more alarmingly, the number of people facing famine in 2024 more than doubled from the previous year, reaching a shocking 1.9 million. Conflict and violence were the primary drivers in 20 countries and territories, where 140 million people faced acute hunger, the report found. Extreme weather was the primary factor driving hunger in 18 countries and economic shocks were the primary cause in 15 countries, impacting 155 million people. This means that war emerged as the largest cause driving hunger in 2024.

Sadly, the global hunger problem will likely only get worse as the 2020s continue to unfold and war is likely to remain one of the primary drivers. The conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza show no signs of slowing down despite ongoing attempts at negotiating a ceasefire; the latter is only being intensified. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has only expanded the genocide in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 100 Palestinians on Friday (May 16) and displacing over 19000 in 24 hours between Thursday and Friday. Most worryingly, the strip has been under a total blockade since March, preventing aid from reaching the people of Gaza. Human Rights Watch has labelled this Israeli blockade as a tool of extermination and the entire population of the strip is now suffering from high levels of acute food insecurity, as per the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), with an estimated 500,000 facing starvation. Now, conflicts are being compounded by aid cuts as a key risk to global food supplies, with funding to humanitarian food sectors projected to sink by up to 45 per cent. Many associate this decline with the policies of US President Donald Trump, but other countries have also reduced their contribution.

As a result, the report’s prognosis for hunger in the ongoing year remains bleak, with the abrupt termination of funding in 2025 already disrupting humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. The number of people facing acute hunger may well see a seventh consecutive spike now. While ending the conflicts driving global hunger should be the top priority for now, especially when it comes to Gaza, the global aid cuts remain the longer-term threat. Extreme weather and economic shocks, with the latter also often being driven by climate change, will be with us even in times of peace and the former is predicted to only intensify. As such, the Global South will need more aid at a time when donors from wealthy countries, mainly in the West, are quickly disappearing. Millions of people facing starvation is a small obstacle when one must pander to voters with an unquenchable thirst for xenophobia and bigotry, it would seem. Countries like Pakistan will have to work hard now to shore up their own food supplies and ensure that their people do not go hungry.