Miller Magazine Issue: 154 October 2022

52 MILLER / OCTOBER 2022 NEWS The number of people facing acute food insecurity worldwide is expected to continue to rise precip- itously, as the food crisis tightens its grip on 19 ‘hunger hotspots’ – driven by rising conflict, weather extremes, and economic instability aggravated by the pandemic and the ripple effects of the crisis in Ukraine, a joint UN report has found. The ‘Hunger Hotspots – FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity’ report - issued by the Food and Agriculture Or- ganization of the United Nations (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) calls for urgent humanitarian action to save lives and livelihoods and prevent famine in hotspot countries where acute food insecurity is expected to worsen from Octo- ber 2022 to January 2023. The report lays out country-specific recommendations on priorities for anticipatory action – short- term protective measures to be put in place before new hu- manitarian needs materialize; and emergency response – ac- tions to address existing humanitarian needs. “The severe drought in the Horn of Africa has pushed people to the brink of starvation, destroying crops and killing livestock on which their survival depends. Acute food insecurity is ris- ing fast and spreading across the world. People in the poorest countries in particular who have yet to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are suffering from the ripple effects of ongoing conflicts, in terms of prices, food and fertilizer sup- plies, as well as the climate emergency. Without a massively scaled up humanitarian response that has at its core time-sensi- tive and life-saving agricultural assistance, the situation will like- ly worsen in many countries in the coming months,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. “This is the third time in 10 years that Somalia has been threatened with a devastating famine. The famine in 2011 was caused by two consecutive failed rainy seasons as well as con- flict. Today we’re staring at a perfect storm: a likely fifth consec- utive failed rainy season that will see drought lasting well into 2023. But the people at the sharp end of today’s crisis are also facing soaring food prices and severely limited opportunities to earn a living following the pandemic. We urgently need to get help to those in grave danger of starvation in Somalia and the world’s other hunger hotspots,” said David Beasley, WFP’s Executive Director. The report spotlights the hunger crisis in the Horn of Af- rica, where the longest drought in over 40 years is forecast to continue - with the fifth failed rainy season in a row on the horizon - adding to the cumulative, devastating effects that successive rainfall deficits, economic crises and conflict have had on vulnerable households since 2020. Water scarcity has led to below average harvests, livestock deaths, and forced hundreds of thousands of people off their land in search of Food crisis tightens its grip on 19 ‘hunger hotspots’