In the last two years the number of people at risk for hunger has grown exponentially, according to the 2022 GHI report 46 countries will not reach the zero hunger goal of the 2030 agenda. Emmi (Cesvi): “We are experiencing the third crisis of food prices in just 15 years “
The Cesvi Foundation presented the report of the Global Hunger Index (GHI), the global hunger index. According to the 2022 GHI, progress towards hunger has come to a halt, with 828 million malnourished people in the world, 46 million more than the previous year. With this trend, it will not be possible to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal on Food Security, set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Since 2019, the number of people suffering from hunger has increased by 150 million. The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have produced even more serious consequences and irreversible effects, causing the number to rise to 282 million. In 2023 without radical interventions, 45 million people are expected to risk death from the food emergency. According to the GHI, hunger is of an alarming category in 9 countries and severe in 35. In particular in the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Yemen. On the other hand, the GHI research does not reveal sufficient data to classify the food index of 4 other countries: Burundi, Somalia, South Sudan and Syria. This is due to the impossibility of receiving this data, within states where the presence of a democratic government is lacking and where hunger is used too many times as an instrument of war.
The GHI Score
The Global Hunger Index is the main measure of hunger in the world, it annually monitors over one hundred countries. In Italy, the GHI is curated by the CESVI foundation, which in recent days has presented the seventeenth edition. The countries analyzed were 121 and the GHI score was made on the basis of four indicators: malnutrition, child wasting, child stunting and mortality of children under five. To determine the GHI value, it is necessary to have all four of these indicators, and not all countries can obtain them. The GHI ranks the score on a basis of 100 points, the values from 10.00 to 19.99 indicate moderate hunger, from 20.00 to 34.6 a high hunger, from 35.00 to 49.9 alarming and give 50 extremely alarming. The scores showed that in the year 2022, the countries with an alarming food scenario are located in the region of South Asia and Subsharian Africa. Compared to 2014, hunger has increased in 20 states that fall into the moderate, alarming and severe categories.
The causes of the food crisis
Progress in the fight against hunger has stalled in recent years, due to the overlap of several global crises including wars, climate change, rising food market prices and the Covid-19 pandemic. Climate change appears to be a key factor in the food emergency. Most countries in Asia and Africa do not have the resources to tackle these changes, as well as pay the cost of economic inequalities, poverty, infrastructure shortages, inadequate governance and low agricultural productivity. In recent months, the realities affected by unwanted climate change have been Pakistan, Japan, China, Europe and the USA. In fact, due to increasingly intense weather events, activities such as agriculture and fishing are hindered. Wars were another key element in the rise of the GHI. The Ukrainian conflict has produced an increase in the prices of food, fertilizers and fuel with effects on hunger in the world that will have serious consequences well beyond 2023. The increase in prices in the financial market, however, took place already before the war in Ukraine, or during the pandemic, and caused the GHI index to skyrocket.
Possible solutions
“To end hunger and food insecurity in a lasting way, the process of transforming food systems must put local communities at the center. Numerous examples around the world demonstrate that a local leadership is able to adequately urge those who have to make decisions to take responsibility for the fight against hunger and food insecurity, not only in the most democratically stable contexts, but also in fragile ones “, says Valeria Emmi , Networking and Advocacy Senior Specialist of CESVI. Progress in the area of the food crisis has been remarkable in recent years, but has declined significantly in recent years. “We are experiencing the third food price crisis in 15 years, which shows that our food systems are not working. It is necessary – he emphasizes – to put local knowledge at the center ”. The food crisis is one of the pieces that make up the picture of a much wider global crisis, which includes: financial, monetary, economic, humanitarian and social crisis. The Covid threat is not over yet and it is also necessary to prepare for new pandemics, adopting the “one health” approach, a unique and global intervention approach to face the approach of new crises and pandemics.
The last drop
On the occasion of the presentation of the GHI report, the Cesvi Foundation inaugurated the photographic exhibition “The last drop”, curated by Fabrizio Spucches, and with the contribution of Nicolas Ballario. Ballario himself provided a starting point for reflection on the story of the food crisis and a parallelism with the Ukrainian conflict. where famine often kills in indifference. The exhibition curated by Nicolas Ballario can be visited at the Milan civic aquarium until Sunday 11 December 2022.