“Further urgent actions are required to prevent food and nutrition crisis”

Deniz Kılınç / Istanbul, February 08 (HNA) – Further urgent actions are required to prevent a worsening of the food and nutrition security crisis, warned the heads of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director General Qu Dongyu, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank Group (WBG) President David Malpass, World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley and World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in a joint statement on the Global Food and Nutrition Security Crisis in a joint statement released on Wednesday.

“We offer our deepest sympathies to the people of Türkiye and the neighbouring Syrian Arab Republic who have suffered the recent earthquakes” read the statement and added:

“Our organizations are closely monitoring the situation, assessing the magnitude of the disaster, and working to mobilize necessary support in accordance with each organization’s mandates and procedures.”

Countries should balance short-term urgent interventions with longer-term resilience efforts as they respond to the crisis, stressed the leaders of the prominent international organisations and urged:

“To prevent a worsening of the food and nutrition security crisis, further urgent actions are required to rescue hunger hotspots, facilitate trade, improve the functioning of markets, enhance the role of the private sector, and reform and repurpose harmful subsidies with careful targeting and efficiency.”

Globally, poverty and food insecurity are both on the rise after decades of development gains, the organisation leaders stated, adding that the supply chain disruptions, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, financial tightening through rising interest rates and the war in Ukraine have caused an unprecedented shock to the global food system, with the most vulnerable hit the hardest.

Food inflation remains high in the world, with dozens of countries experiencing double-digit inflation, as stated in the joint statement and added:

“According to WFP, 349 million people across 79 countries are acutely food insecure. The prevalence of undernourishment is also on the rise, following three years of deterioration. This situation is expected to worsen, with global food supplies projected to drop to a three-year low in 2022/2023.

“The need is especially dire in 24 countries that FAO and WFP have identified as hunger hotspots, of which 16 are in Africa. Fertilizer affordability as defined by the ratio between food prices and fertilizer prices is also the lowest since the 2007/2008 food crisis, which is leading to lower food production and impacting smallholder farmers the hardest, worsening the already high local food prices.

“For example, the reduction in 2022 of the production of rice, for which Africa is the largest importer in the world, coupled with prospects of lower stocks, is of grave concern. In response to the inflation of food, fuel and fertilizer prices, countries have spent over US$710 billion for social protection measures covering 1 billion people, including approximately US$380 billion for subsidies.

“However, only US$4.3 billion has been spent in low-income countries for social protection measures, compared to US$507.6 billion in high-income countries.”