According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ( FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP), Nigeria and 24 other countries are likely to face “devastating levels of hunger and food shortages” caused early by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FAO-WFP Early Warning Analysis of Acute Food Insecurity Hotspots study was released early Friday by the WFP on its website.
“People in some 25 countries are set to face devastating levels of hunger in coming months due to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report stated.
The 25-page report points out that while the largest concentration of need is found in Africa, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in the Middle East and Asia – particularly middle-income countries – are still plagued by debilitating rates of food insecurity.
Apart from Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone , Liberia, Niger and Burkina Faso are predicted to have similar fates in some of the West African countries.
Many countries included: Cameroon, Mali, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen , Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Angola, Palestine, Jordan, Algeria , Tunisia and Egypt.
“Three months ago at the UN Security Council, I told world leaders that we ran the risk of a famine of biblical proportions,” David Beasley, WFP executive director was quoted to have said, “Today, our latest data tell us that, since then, millions of the world’s very poorest families have been forced even closer to the abyss.”
The official said livelihoods are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate.
“Make no mistake – if we do not act now to end this pandemic of human suffering, many people will die,” he said.
The report identifies five major pathways through which the impact of the pandemic is pushing vulnerable people further into food insecurity.
These include ‘impacts on food access through reduced household purchasing power; impacts on availability of food; agricultural production and food supply chains, impacts on government capacities to protect vulnerable populations; impacts on political stability, and impacts on conflict dynamics.”
According to the study, the number of people suffering from hunger in these countries could rise from an estimated 149 million pre-COVID-19 to 270 million before the end of the year if life-saving assistance is not given urgently.
Recent projections also indicate that up to 6,000 children could die every day from preventable causes over the next six months as a result of pandemic-related disruptions to critical health and nutrition services.
Previously, the fourth edition of the Global Report on Food Crisis announced that more than 135 million people in 55 countries and territories had encountered acute food insecurity in 2019, which calls for urgent action.
The report indicated that the situation could worsen this year due to the effects of COVID-19, but the exact magnitude of the deterioration is not yet known. Northern Nigeria alone would be 5 million, according to the report.
Of the 135 million in 2019, there were 73 million in Africa, half of them in 36 of Africa’s 55 nations.
War-torn Yemen, DR Congo and Afghanistan, each with 15.9, 15.6 and 11.3 million people “or worse” facing food shortages, were at the top of the list.
To prevent the worst, the WFP said it is scaling up to provide food assistance to an unprecedented 138 million people ”who face desperate levels of hunger as the pandemic tightens its grip on some of the most fragile countries on earth”.
The expense of WFP ‘s response to this burgeoning food scarcity is estimated at $4.9 billion, with an additional $500 million to avoid the outbreak of famine in the most vulnerable countries, the report states.
It is said that this constitutes more than half of the revised Global Humanitarian Response Plan for COVID-19, while the largest appeal in the history of the UN has been launched today for more than $10 billion.
“The plan covers wide-ranging humanitarian needs in more than 60 countries, many of them already reeling from the impact of conflict, climate change and economic crisis.”
In an attempt to reduce the impact of the pandemic on global food systems, FAO recently unveiled the COVID-19 response and recovery programme, while also calling for an additional investment fund of $1.2 billion to scale up the fight against the global food emergency crisis during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
In order to avoid multiple food shortages arising from the indirect effects of the pandemic and to protect people already suffering from acute food insecurity, the FAO – WFP report recommends that countries sustain and scale up essential humanitarian food , nutrition and livelihood assistance.
”Countries should adapt assistance activities to the COVID-19 operational context, and promote flexible financing; minimize interruptions to critical food supply chains and ensure the functioning and resilience of agri-food systems; support governments to reinforce and scale-up social-protection systems, and strengthen basic service delivery,” it said.
More so, the report recommends that excluded groups be reached and nations should take into consideration the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls.
”Promote innovative data collection, monitor and assess evidence-based programming; adapt interventions to ensure inclusion and to minimise social tensions; as well step up coordination and partnerships across boards,” it added.