Food insecurity affects more women than men – report
United Nations has revealed that up to 783 million people around the world are living in hunger. Photo | FILE
What you need to know:
- While this remains relatively unchanged from 2022, factors such as conflict, poverty, climate, economic shocks and Covid-19 have made it unlikely to meet the 2030 sustainable development goal of ending hunger without significant changes to global and local food systems.
The 2023 United Nations' State of food security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report has revealed that up to 783 million people around the world are living in hunger.
While this remains relatively unchanged from 2022, factors such as conflict, poverty, climate, economic shocks and Covid-19 have made it unlikely to meet the 2030 sustainable development goal of ending hunger without significant changes to global and local food systems.
Launched on July 12 2023, the report also categorically indicates that food insecurity affects women more than men in every region of the world. However, the gender gap in food insecurity at the global level, which had widened in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, narrowed from 3.8 percentage points in 2021 to 2.4 percentage points in 2022, suggesting that the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on women’s food insecurity have eased globally and in some regions. The gender gap diminished notably in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean but widened in Africa and in Northern America and Europe.
“Hunger has been on the rise in Africa since 2010, with a sharp increase in all sub-regions in 2020 followed by a gentler rise in 2021. In 2022, the prevalence of undernutrition in Africa continued to rise from 19.4 per cent in 2021 to 19.7 per cent – the equivalent of 11 million more people in one year and nearly 57 million more since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, hunger increased throughout all sub-regions of Africa in 2022,” the report partly reads.
In the Ugandan context, Gerald Kato, the Right to Grow (R2G) Uganda program coordinator says seasonal changes due to climate change remain one of the biggest challenges facing Uganda's food sector today. The increasing temperatures, drought, erratic rainfall and floods adversely affect farmers’ yields.
“This has created an uncertain future for farmers and everyone who depends on agriculture as a source of livelihood. In most parts of Northern and Eastern Uganda, it forced farmers to replant when poor conditions at the start of the season failed early planted crops. This meant that crop development was delayed by approximately a month, leading to crop damage and reduced crop yields. It also means that less food was available to feed households and participate in the crop market,” Kato explains.
According to the Uganda food security outlook conducted by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), the full start of 2022 first bimodal rainy season (March to June) was delayed by 30 to 40 days or more across the country. The season is believed to be among the driest on record since 1981 in large parts of Northern Uganda.
As of January 9 2023, the World Food Program (WFP) Hunger Map shows that 16.4 million Ugandans face insufficient food consumption. This represents an increase of 1.2 million food-insecure persons based on the last three months of 2022. The live map shows chronic malnutrition for 28.9 per cent of children under 5 years in Uganda. For instance, poor food consumption has likely contributed to increased levels of acute malnutrition in the Karamoja region, particularly in Moroto and Kaabong districts.
“It’s time for all stakeholders to ask themselves if the systems created to feed the planet are working. It is very clear they are not. We need to shift our mindsets around ending hunger—it’s time to invest in people and in communities to transform these global systems that only benefit some,” says Rowlands Kaotcha, Vice President of Programs, Africa and Mexico with the Hunger Project.
Comparison with other countries in the region
According to the live WFP hunger map as of August 11 2023, in Uganda, with a population of 42.7 million people, 9.5 million have insufficient food conception. 3.5 per cent of children below five years have acute malnutrition and 28.9 per cent of the same age category have chronic malnutrition. The same map also shows that of the 51.4 million people in Kenya, 12.1 million people face insufficient food consumption while 4.2 per cent of the children under five are facing acute malnutrition, and 26.2 per cent under five are facing chronic malnutrition.
The same map shows that 23.2 million people in Ethiopia with a population of 109.2 million people have insufficient food consumption while 7.2 percent of children under five are facing acute malnutrition. 36.8 per cent of children under five are facing chronic malnutrition. In South Sudan with 11.0 million people, 3.5 million people have insufficient food consumption while 22.7 per cent of children under five are facing acute malnutrition, while 31.3 per cent of children under five are also facing chronic malnutrition.
