Hunger kills more than covid | Oxfam report on the global food crisis

A report published by the international organization Oxfam reveals that after a year and a half since the start of the pandemic, deaths from hunger in the world are higher than deaths from covid 19. According to the study eleven people die of extreme hunger every minute, a figure higher than the seven deaths generated by the pandemic at the same time. The book also asserts that “armed conflicts, economic disruption caused by the pandemic and the growing climate crisis have exacerbated poverty and the catastrophic situation of food insecurity in the most starving regions of the world, in turn creating new hotbeds of hunger ”.

The document says that this year the figure of 155 million people in 55 countries suffering from extreme food insecurity has been reached and that 20 million of those inhabitants of the planet have joined this year to reach the mentioned number. According to the report, the pandemic caused 33 million workers to lose their jobs around the world in 2020, also generating losses of $ 3.7 trillion in labor income, a figure equivalent to 4.4% of global GDP in 2019. . Global food prices have increased by almost 40 percent from last year, registering the largest increase in more than a decade.

The same report notes the urgent need for governments to act immediately to address food insecurity and its causes, as the situation could worsen further.

“Since the start of the pandemic, the number of people living in conditions of near famine has increased sixfoldAccording to the Global Report on Food Crise, a United Nations organization.

Thus, what initially appeared to be a global health crisis quickly turned into an acute problem of hunger, the main cause of which is attributed to the conflicts that persist in the world, despite formal calls to end it. “Global military spending rose 2.7% last year, a percentage equivalent to 51,000 million dollars “, specifies Oxfam, assuring that with this sum it would have been possible to finance up to six and a half times the request of 7,900 million dollars that the United Nations made in 2021 to make in the face of the fight against food insecurity Every day and a half, 8 billion dollars are invested in military spending around the world.

“Unless governments act urgently to tackle food insecurity and its causes, the worst is yet to come. They must focus their resources on financing their social protection systems, as well as on programs that meet the needs of vulnerable people and save immediate lives, instead of allocating them to the purchase of weapons, which perpetuate conflicts and violence ”, it is specified in the document.

Other projections indicate that 745 million people worldwide will live in “extreme poverty” by the end of 2021, implying an increase of 100 million people since the pandemic was declared 18 years ago. month. To this is added that 2.7 billion people have received no public assistance to cope with the economic consequences of covid-19. Among the groups most directly affected are women, displaced populations and people working in the informal sector.

On the other hand, also during the pandemic, wealth is concentrated. “The wealth of the world’s ten richest people (including nine men) increased by $ 413 billion last year“, Specifies the Oxfam report, adding that” this amount would be sufficient to finance up to more than eleven times all the humanitarian emergencies of the United Nations by 2021 “.

The document also emphasizes that to end the food crisis, governments “must rebuild the global economy in a more just and sustainable manner as part of the recovery from the pandemic” and “end the underlying inequalities that are deepening the gap between rich and poor. ”.

Among the initiatives proposed to overcome global famine is the urgent need to finance the United Nations humanitarian appeal against hunger and the creation of a global social protection fund. In addition, says Oxfam, it should “guarantee humanitarian access to conflict zones, stop using hunger as a weapon of war and promote peace through the participation and leadership of women in peacebuilding”. In addition, there is the need to “build fairer, more resilient and more sustainable food systems” and “to ensure the leadership of women in the response to the pandemic and the recovery that follows”.

All this – is stated in the document – without losing sight of the urgency of supporting “a universal vaccinel ”against covid-19, as urgent measures are taken to deal with the climate crisis.