Rich are getting richer but more people are going hungry in Global South. Why?

Serious, even alarming, levels of hunger are eating away at the Global South, particularly in Africa and South Asia, according to the latest Global Hunger Index, as the undernourished masses grow to 735 million, up from an already worrying 572 million in 2017. Although the triple whammy of Covid-19, climate change and Russia’s war on Ukraine has intensified food insecurities worldwide, the impact has been most deeply felt in sub-Saharan Africa. The nine countries defined as having an “alarming” level of hunger are overwhelmingly concentrated in that region: Burundi, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Niger, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. But there are also a further 34 countries with a “serious” hunger issue, including India, the world’s most populous nation, Pakistan and East Timor. In a post-pandemic world still facing acute food insecurities, the hunger crisis raises some hard questions. Is there the right global structure in place to handle the challenge? Are there too many agencies working in the area with no concrete results? Are their mandates clear, or is there an overlap? Do they have the resources to do the job? Crucially, is there strong enough leadership globally to handle this unprecedented crisis? There is no looking away from the catastrophe of mass starvation. According to the World Food Programme, pre-pandemic, 135 million people in 53 countries were grappling with acute food insecurity – this year, the numbers are set to rise to 345 million people in 79 states. The human costs of such large-scale hunger are huge. For instance, anaemia – a condition closely correlated with hunger – affects some 571 million women and 269 million young children. Unsurprisingly, the highest prevalence is found among those in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Hunger can also affect education. In sub-Saharan Africa, 98 million children are not in school, making it not just the largest such cohort in any region but also the only one that has been growing, according to Unesco research released last year. In second place is the Central and Southern Asian region, with 85 million children. All the numbers point to a stark fact: the Global South is the world’s hunger hotspot. In particular, South Asia has by far the highest rate of “child wasting”, which the Global Hunger Index defines as under-fives with low weight for their height. At 14.8 per cent, this is more than double the 6 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa. There is also a high prevalence of “child stunting”: under-fives who are short for their age. With the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a dramatic rise in undernourishment in South Asia, which reached 15.9 per cent from 2020-2022, from 13.5 per cent for 2014-2016. It was worse in sub-Saharan Africa, where the rate hit 21.7 per cent, an increase from 16.8 per cent for 2010–2012. And then there is Afghanistan, which has seen a precipitous deterioration since the Taliban seized power, and is set to see things worsen after suffering from one of the world’s deadliest earthquakes this year. While the world’s poorest go hungry, the rich are getting richer. Of the world’s new wealth created since 2020, 63 per cent has gone to fatten the coffers of the richest 1 per cent, an addition of US$26 trillion, according to Oxfam. Left unchecked, this growing wealth inequality will only mean millions more in the Global South going without. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza can also be expected to aggravate the hunger crisis, further destabilising food security in vulnerable regions. The global mission to end hunger by 2030, enshrined in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, looks further away than ever. As the Global Hunger Index put it: “At the current pace, 58 countries will not [even] achieve low hunger by 2030.” With the growing prevalence of undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality, the hunger eradication targets are completely off track. The global food system is in disarray. Almost half the world’s people cannot afford a healthy diet. Food supplies are increasingly being disrupted by heatwaves, floods, droughts and wars. We do not lack proclamations of political commitments at the national and global levels or available solutions. What we have is a collective failure to translate these commitments into effective action. What are we waiting for? Sachi Satapathy is the director of the Asia-based research evaluation agency AF Development Care in New Delhi, India