The International Rescue Committee (IRC), an organisation created in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, helps rebuild lives of people devastated by disasters and conflict. It claims that farmlands destroyed by droughts and floods attributable to global warming and climate change are leading to global food insecurity. As a result, food prices are expected to rise 20 per cent globally by 2050. These issues including conflicts are a key factor behind manmade food crisis contributing to global hunger.
IRC's report published in mid-August this year says that 1 in every 11 people in the world are going hungry and that 757 million people could not afford the food required for maintaining their basic health in 2023. As far as malnutrition and hunger are concerned, they go hand in hand. In fact, malnutrition is about the lack of required amount of carbohydrate and protein in the human body where former is the source of energy and the latter being the driver of physical growth (of a human body) including development of its brain.
Around 45 million children under the age of 5 go hungry and hence suffer from acute malnutrition globally. And half of the children who die from hunger (about 2 million annually) are actually victims of acute malnutrition. Though malnutrition is treatable, only one out of five affected children get the required treatment.
IRC further informs that global hunger has been reduced in the last 50 years. That means 1 in 11 persons (9 per cent of the world population) are hungry today whereas in 1970 the proportion was 24 per cent, that is, 1 in every 4 persons was hungry in 1970.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report published in July last by five UN specialised agencies in the context of G20 Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty Task Force Ministerial Meeting in Brazil, on the other hand, warned that the mission to achieve SDGs, particularly (SDG) 2, which aims to attain zero hunger by 2030, is significantly falling short of the target. The report shows that far from making a gain (in the fight against hunger), the world has rather lost 15 years so much so that the present level of global malnourishment is comparable to what it was in 2008-2009. Except some progress made in areas like stunting and exclusive breastfeeding (first six months in the life of a child when it is fed only breastmilk), an alarmingly large number of people across the globe are suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition as no progress could be made in the past three years in this area. The result has been that between 713 and 757 million were left undernourished in 2023. Region-wise, the number of hungry people is rising in Africa, while it is said to be stable in Asia.
However, according to an estimate, in 2023, 19.1 per cent of the South Asian population was severely food insecure with 15.6 per cent being undernourished, the highest rate in the Asia Pacific region. Another piece of bad news is that one-third of the world's stunted children live in South Asia. And 25 million South Asian children are wasting which means they are too thin for their height. The reasons include poor level of nutritious food intake, illness, maternal malnutrition and low birthweight. Since Bangladesh is part of South Asia, what is the picture of hunger and malnutrition here?
The Global Hunger Index (GHI), a measure of hunger globally, regionally and country-wise and prepared by European NGOs including the Concern Worldwide of Ireland and Welthungerhilfe of Germany, ranked Bangladesh 84th out of 127 countries in 2024 with a score of 19.4. According to the GHI scale that ranges from 0 or hunger-free to 100 (worst possible condition of hunger), Bangladesh's position on the hunger scale is termed moderate. However, last year's performance when it was ranked 81 st with a score of 19, Bangladesh has evidently fared worse than the previous year. What is important to note at this point is that the scores (especially, for child wasting and child stunting) on which the HGI for 2024 is based were not collected in 2024 (actually, those were gathered between 2019 and 2023). Notably, the values of the four component indicators of the GHI score are 11.9 per cent for undernourishment, which means 11.9 per cent of the country's population are undernourished. Worse yet, 23.6 per cent of the country's children under five are stunted, while 11 per cent of the children under 5 are wasted. What is heart-breaking about this report is that 2.9 per cent of the children in Bangladesh die before their 5th birthday.
Disheartening as these figures for the components of GHI score for 2024 are, Bangladesh has still fared better than India and Pakistan. But that is cold comfort seeing that there is no letup in the inflation rate rise with attendant food price hike. Together the condition is being made harder for the low-income and, in some cases, the lower segment of the middle income people, to feed their children necessary nutritious diets to avoid stunting or wasting. Though harm to farmlands due to natural calamities including floods and droughts are a factor behind the overall food insecurity, it is not exactly the amount of food crops damaged annually that is main cause of hunger in Bangladesh. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), food insecurity in Bangladesh is attributable mostly to extreme poverty. And that poverty has to do with unemployment and underemployment and the marginal farmers' inadequate access to land to cultivate and social exclusion. Of course, natural disasters also play its part in the process of their pauperisation, but that is not the only reason for their poverty and the lack of access to foods that could keep them and their children healthy.
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