UN says over 190 million people suffered from food shortages last year
UN says over 190 million people suffered from food shortages last year
The number of people facing hunger rose to 193 million last year as conflict, climate change and economic crises ravaged people's livelihoods, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday.
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Among 53 countries facing the problem, the most affected include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Yemen and Afghanistan [source: Getty]
Conflict, extreme weather and economic shocks increased the number of people facing by a fifth to 193 million last year and the outlook will worsen without urgent action "on a massive scale," a humanitarian agency said on Tuesday.
The Global Network Against Food Crises, set up by the and the , said in its annual report that food insecurity nearly doubled in the six years since 2016 when it began tracking it.
"The outlook moving forward is not good. If more is not done to support rural communities, the scale of the devastation in terms of hunger and lost livelihoods will be appalling," the GNAFC report said.
"Urgent humanitarian action is needed on a massive scale to prevent that from happening."
Defined as any lack of food that threatens lives, livelihoods or both, acute food insecurity at crisis levels or worse grew by 40 million people or 20 percentÌýlast year.
Looking ahead, the report said - both countries are major food producers - poses serious risks to global food security, especially in food crisis countries including , , Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and .
In 2021, got more than 90 percentÌýof its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo received 80 percent, while Madagascar imported 70 percentÌýof the food staple from the two countries.
"Countries already coping with high levels of acute hunger are particularly vulnerable to (the war) due to their high dependency on imports of food and (their) vulnerability to global food price shocks," the report said.Ìý
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