The urgent need to address the covid-19 food crisis

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Today 270 million people - the equivalent of all the inhabitants of Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy - are on the brink of starvation.

The figure has doubled in the last 12 months.

And it is the children of the world who are suffering the most.

An estimated 11 million children under the age of five face extreme hunger or starvation in 11 countries in Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia.

Of those, 168,000 will die of nutritional deficiencies by the end of 2022 unless they receive emergency help.

And a total of 73 million primary school children in 60 low-income countries suffer from chronic hunger.

More information

• Almost 20 million more people suffer acute hunger after the pandemic in the 13 most affected countries in the world

• When the coronavirus is less scary than hunger

• Starving yourself for not doing it from coronavirus

Hunger was already on the rise before the coronavirus pandemic, mainly as a consequence of wars and conflicts, and exacerbated by climate change.

However, the after-effects of the pandemic have created a global hunger crisis.

One of the reasons is that covid-19 interrupted the school year.

More than 1.6 billion children have lost school since the start of the pandemic, and nearly 200 million have still not returned to the classroom.

Past crises have shown that school closures carry huge social and economic costs, including increasing child marriage and child labor.

Some young women end up paying the highest price: complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death for girls between the ages of 15 and 19 in low- and middle-income countries.

Ultimately, crises set back the progress made in ensuring that all girls have access to quality education.

Furthermore, schools provide many poor children with their only nutritious meal of the day.

The closures mean that millions of students have not only lost their opportunities to learn, but also to eat: during the crisis, more than 39 billion school rations have been discontinued.

Women and girls are often the first to miss meals, accounting for more than 70% of those who suffer from chronic hunger.

The damage done in just a few weeks of poor nutrition can limit a child to life

The damage done in just a few weeks of poor nutrition can limit a hungry child to life, and malnutrition can affect a country's economic progress for a generation.

Therefore, a high priority must be placed on getting children back to school, where they can receive education and food.

The international humanitarian system has achieved a great deal with relatively little funding.

For example, the World Food Program (WFP) feeds about 100 million people a year.

And when COVID-19 seriously disrupted commercial air transport services, the UN created a logistics system to transport health workers and humanitarian organizations, including vital supplies and food.

But a crisis of this magnitude requires an ambitious plan that involves more than just providing meals in schools.

Humanitarian organizations cannot do it alone.

At their June summit, the rich economies of the G7 must commit to a long-term plan that responds to the growing global food needs and includes preventive actions: accumulate food stocks, develop insurance as a type of protection and support farmers and farmers in developing countries with long-term investments to help them achieve self-sufficiency.

In addition, authorities need to adopt innovative ways of generating finance, such as facilities backed by guarantees that make the most of the use of development aid and private sector funds, which was at the core of the Addis Ababa proposals. 2015 to finance the Sustainable Development Goals.

Another priority should be closer collaboration between the UN and the World Bank, the only truly global organization with the capacity to mobilize additional resources on a sustained basis.

But there is a very simple and common sense solution to the immediate crisis: new international funds.

At least $ 600 billion of the reserve assets of the International Monetary Fund can go to the poorest countries.

Leaders and lenders can agree to up to $ 80 billion in debt relief provided the money goes to education, health and nutrition.

And the World Bank and regional development banks can quickly expand their grants and loans.

With about $ 10 billion this year, famines could be prevented in Yemen, South Sudan, northeastern Nigeria and the Sahel.

And mass hunger - which immediately precedes famine - could be prevented in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia's Tigray region and other vulnerable places.

It may sound like a lot of money, but it's equal to a dollar a month for every inhabitant of the richest economies on the planet, and represents a fraction of 1% of their total stimulus spending related to the pandemic.

We have to act fast, which means giving immediate subsidies to WFP and leading NGOs like Save the Children to feed hungry children and their families.

The Education Cannot Wait organization, which helps displaced children go back to school and in its short existence has managed to raise almost a billion dollars, must be fully funded, more now than just 31% and 27% of refugee boys and girls, respectively, are enrolled in secondary education.

By allocating additional resources to education, we can get 136 million children in some of the poorest and most conflict-affected countries back to school and stay there.

What happens in the most fragile places on the planet has repercussions and effects in the most stable countries

Covid-19 has also exposed another educational gap: two-thirds of children of school age on the planet lack access to the internet at home, which prevents them from learning online.

Today, only 5% of children in low-income countries can access the Internet, compared to 90% in high-income countries.

A Unicef-led project to connect the world could help close this staggering digital divide.

The British Government is committed to globally leading the goal of getting all boys and girls in the school system and ensuring that girls receive 12 years of education.

But we will not achieve this noble goal unless the G7 summit addresses this issue, in addition to food security.

Time and time again, education has demonstrated its transformative power for entire individuals, families, and countries.

But chronic hunger can have devastating consequences: cruel and preventable deaths, violent conflict and mass displacement.

Consequently, ignoring the scourge of hunger is not an option.

What happens in the most fragile places on the planet has repercussions and effects in the most stable countries.

The choice facing world leaders is simple: act now to tackle the hunger crisis, or pay a much higher price later.

Immediate action will be cheaper and save more lives than responding only after many famines have occurred and the loss of an entire generation's education has taken a terrible toll.

Gordon Brown

is a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Head of the International Commission on Global Education Funding Opportunities.

Mark Lowcock

is UN Deputy Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Translated from English by David Meléndez Tormen.

Copyright:

Project Syndicate, 2021

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