Understanding the Hunger Surge Caused by the COVID-19 Recession to Mitigate It Before It Is Too Late

For many people agriculture is the only means of survival, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Credit: Busani Bafana/IPSBy Marco V. Sánchez CantilloROME, Apr 28 2020 (IPS) Many uncertainties haunt the world’s campaign to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, but one thing is now sure: Global economic activity will suffer greatly, with large-scale consequences for the incomes and welfare of all, but especially for the most vulnerable food import-dependent countries. In the absence of timely and effective policy responses, this will exacerbate an already unwelcome increase in the number of people who don’t have enough to eat. Last year The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, the SDG2 monitoring report that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) produces in collaboration with other UN partners, warned that economic slowdowns and downturns helped explain rising undernourishment levels in 65 of the 77 countries that recorded such rises between 2011 and 2017. The International Monetary Fund has just slashed its global gross domestic product forecast by a huge 6.3 percentage points, making FAO’s analysis all the more relevant as part of a worldwide toolkit to prevent the health crisis from triggering starvation. In January, the IMF anticipated global GDP would expand by 3.3 percent, but in April, when much of the world was shutting down to contain contagion, it issued a new forecast of minus 3.0...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Economy & Trade Food & Agriculture Global Headlines Health Humanitarian Emergencies Poverty & SDGs TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news