Miller Magazine Issue: 151 July 2022

46 MILLER / JULY 2022 NEWS farming and livestock rearing, drive population displacement and push millions to the brink in countries across the world. The report warns that worrisome climatic trends linked to La Niña since late 2020 are expected to continue through 2022, driving up humanitarian needs and acute hunger. An unprecedented drought in East Africa affecting Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya is leading to a fourth consecutive be- low-average rainfall season, while South Sudan will face its fourth consecutive year of large-scale flooding, which will likely continue to drive people from their homes and devas- tate crops and livestock production. The report also expects above-average rains and a risk of localized flooding in the Sahel, a more intense hurricane season in the Caribbean, and below-average rains in Afghanistan – which is already reeling from multiple seasons of drought, violence and po- litical upheaval. The report also emphasises the urgency of the dire macro- economic conditions in several countries – brought on by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and exacerbated by the recent upheaval in global food and energy markets. These conditions are causing dramatic income losses among the poorest communities and are straining the capacity of na- tional governments to fund social safety nets, income-sup- porting measures, and the import of essential goods. According to the report, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen remain at ‘highest alert’ as hotspots with cata- strophic conditions, and Afghanistan and Somalia are new entries to this worrisome category since the last hotspots report released January 2022. These six countries all have parts of the population facing IPC phase 5 ‘Catastrophe’ or at risk of deterioration towards catastrophic conditions, with up to 750,000 people facing starvation and death. 400,000 of these are in Ethiopia’s Tigray region – the highest number on record in one country since the famine in Somalia in 2011. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, the Sahel, the Sudan and Syria remain ‘of very high concern’ with de- teriorating critical conditions, as in the previous edition of this report – with Kenya a new entry to the list. Sri Lanka, West African coastal countries (Benin, Cabo Verde and Guin- ea), Ukraine and Zimbabwe have been added to the list of hotspots countries, joining Angola, Lebanon, Madagascar, and Mozambique which continue to be hunger hotspots – according to the report. SCALING UP ANTICIPATORY ACTION TO PREVENT DISASTERS The report provides concrete country-specific recommen- dations on priorities for immediate humanitarian response to save lives, prevent famine and protect livelihoods, as well as anticipatory action. The recent G7 commitment highlight- ed the importance of strengthening anticipatory action in humanitarian and development assistance – ensuring pre- dictable hazards don’t become full-blown humanitarian di- sasters. FAO and WFP have partnered to ramp up the scale and reach of anticipatory action, to protect communities’ lives, food security and livelihoods before they need life-saving assistance in the critical window between an early warning and a shock. Flexible humanitarian funding enables FAO and WFP to anticipate humanitarian needs and save lives. Evidence shows that for every US$1 in- vested in anticipatory action to safeguard lives and live- lihoods, up to US$7 can be saved by avoiding losses for disaster-affected communities.