The United Nations defines a food emergency as "an extraordinary situation in which people cannot meet their basic survival needs, or there are serious and immediate threats to human life and well-being." Humanity is imminently faced with such a situation: an emergency of unknown proportions, but probably very large, due to the impact of covid-19 and the applied mitigation measures. Not only are they the more than 400,000 deaths that it has already left in the world; In the field of food, it also leaves havoc: up to 270 million people can end the year seeing themselves in acute hunger, that is, with absolutely nothing to put in their mouths. They are double the 135 million that were recorded before the pandemic.
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Humanity was not doing very well before the arrival of the virus, as the latest records suggest that we already had more than 821 million hungry, that is, men, women and children who go to sleep at the end of the day without have consumed the calories necessary to be healthy. Now, the new coronavirus puts us on the ropes.
This Tuesday, the UN Secretary-General has published the report Impact of covid-19 on food security and nutrition, with a series of recommended and recommended policies to deal with this threat, and in it has warned that the combined effects of covid-19 with mitigation measures and the emerging global recession could, without large-scale coordinated action, disrupt the functioning of food systems.
Such an interruption can have consequences for health and nutrition of a severity and scale never seen for more than half a century, the body warns. "Our food systems are failing, and the pandemic is making matters even worse. Unless action is taken immediately, it is increasingly clear that there will be an impending global food emergency that could have long-term repercussions for hundreds of millions of children and adults, "UN Secretary General António Guterres said on Tuesday during the presentation of these policies at the headquarters of the international organization in New York. In his statement, he warned that Even in countries where food is abundant, there are risks of disruptions in the supply chain.
Safeguarding access to safe and nutritious food is recommended, particularly for young children, pregnant women and infants
To highlight the urgency to act forcefully, the UN has recalled and listed a rosary of data, in addition to the general number of chronically hungry and extremely hungry (acute) already mentioned. See, among others: world economic production is going to decrease by $ 8.5 billion in the next two years; 49 million people will fall into extreme poverty, half in sub-Saharan Africa, and remittances will decrease by 20% in 2020, representing a loss of $ 110 billion in resources available to buy food and meet other needs of families in migrants.
"The pandemic is attacking us at all angles. It has exposed dangerous deficiencies in our systems and is actively threatening the lives and livelihoods of people around the world, including the more than a billion who are employed in the various food industries." , for her part, recalled Agnes Kalibata, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the Food Systems Summit in 2021.
Childhood represents a separate chapter. Last year, 144 million girls and boys were stunted, that is, more than one in five worldwide. In May 2020, 368 million students had lost access to school meals, on which they depend for a large part of their daily nutritional needs. It must also be borne in mind that each drop of one percentage point in the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) means that 0.7 million more girls and boys will suffer growth retardation. In addition, Unicef warned in May that the pandemic may lead to an increase in child malnutrition to the 9.4 million affected and made an international call for $ 1.6 billion to meet the needs created by the pandemic.
User manual to overcome the food crisis
To avoid reaching or worsening these figures, the UN recommends a series of policies that encourage looking beyond the short term, which we list below. "While countries around the world must prioritize access to healthy food, nutrition and aid to the poor as the crisis escalates, we must also make decisions that build the world in which we want to live on the other side of the crisis "advises Kalibata. Thus, the report reaches three clear conclusions: first, we must mobilize now and focus on where the risk is greatest; second, social protection systems must be strengthened and third, "invest in the future, and not in the past," according to Secretary General Guterres.
1. Mobilizing already means that governments must designate food services as essential and apply the protections that are necessary for workers in this sector, continue with humanitarian assistance in the form of food, take it to countries suffering from food crises, intensify support to processing, transportation and local markets, keeping commercial corridors open and serving the liquidity needs of small producers
2. On how to strengthen social protection systems, it is recommended to safeguard access to safe and nutritious food, particularly for young children, pregnant and lactating women, the elderly and other risk groups, and to adapt and expand social protection programs to serve nutritionally at-risk groups, including supporting children who no longer have access to school meals.
3. By "investing in the future", the UN refers to the need to build a more inclusive and sustainable world by creating food systems that better serve the needs of producers and workers in the food sector, providing more inclusive access to healthy and nutritious food in order to eradicate hunger, and rebalancing the relationship between these systems and the natural environment. "If we do these and other things, as outlined in the report we are presenting today, we can avoid some of the worst impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on food security and nutrition, and we can do it in ways that also support the transition green that is urgent to carry out ", concluded Guterres.
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