UN report warns fight against global hunger set back 15 years
Progress against hunger worldwide has been set back by 15 years, leaving some 733 million people hungry in 2023, equivalent to one in 11 people globally and one in five in Africa, according to the latest United Nations Food Security and Nutrition Report. report, published Wednesday.
Despite progress in combating stunting and promoting breastfeeding, global hunger has stagnated for the third consecutive year, according to the report’s authors, who include the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Food and Agriculture Organization.
The findings suggest that between 713 and 757 million people will be undernourished in 2023, 152 million more than in 2019.
Here are the words of FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero:
“The bottom line is that we are still far from achieving the goal of eliminating hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in the world by 2030. Based on the current trajectory, our projections indicate that if this goal continues under the same conditions as today, we will have 582 million people still facing hunger in 2030.”
Regional differences are stark, for example in Africa, where hunger is on the rise and affects one in five people.
Food insecurity in Asia remained stable at 8.1 percent but remains a significant concern as the region is home to more than half of the world’s hunger-stricken people.
Latin America has reported some progress, with 6.2 percent of its population facing hunger. But West Asia and the Caribbean will see food insecurity increase from 2022 to 2023.
Gaza: Exodus from Khan Younis increases pressure on scarce resources
About 150,000 people fled Khan Younis on Monday alone following an evacuation order issued by the Israeli military there, UN humanitarian agencies said, warning that the order was adding to pressure on scarce food, water and shelter.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Aid, OCHA, Some 1.9 million people – nine out of 10 in Gaza – have been forcibly displaced. since October 7, including many people who have been displaced multiple times.
In a related development, a leading independent human rights expert said on Wednesday that Israeli authorities “continue to target human rights defenders” in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, before calling for the immediate release of two Palestinian human rights defenders who are being held in “administrative detention”.
According to Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Omar al-Khatib and Diala Ayesh were detained between October 2023 and March 2024.
In a statement, she said Mr al-Khatib campaigned against the forced eviction of Palestinian families from Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, while Ms Ayesh was a human rights lawyer who documented the detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Ms Lawlor, who briefed the committee, said they and three other activists were among those “who were allegedly slapped, beaten, humiliated, transferred from prison to prison” and made to sign documents in Hebrew “that they could not understand”. Dong Nhan Quy Association and is not an employee of the United Nations.
Rising temperatures in Europe and Central Asia kill nearly 400 teenagers a year
Soaring temperatures across Europe and Central Asia killed an estimated 377 children from 23 countries in 2021, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund. UNICEFwhich found that half of children die from heat-related illnesses in their first year of life.
UNICEF stressed that action was needed on the findings as 92 million children were exposed to regular heatwaves in Europe and Central Asia, where temperatures are rising at the fastest rate globally.
“Increasing temperatures can cause serious health complications for children, especially young children, even in the short term,” said Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia.
In the warning, the agency said exposure to high temperatures has “acute effects on children, even before they are born”.
It can lead to premature birth, low birth weight, stillbirth and birth defects, the agency added, adding that heat stress is a direct cause of infant mortality, can affect infant development and cause a range of childhood illnesses.
As temperatures continue to rise, UNICEF has called on governments across Europe and Central Asia to invest in early warning systems for high temperatures and adapt urban design and infrastructure to reduce heat exposure.
