By Uche Mbah
A United Nations projection on population has indicated that ten percent of the world population will not have enough food to eat this year. This, according to them, is due to the impact of COVID-19 on the world economy. According to the institution, the impact will go beyond hunger alone because millions more will likely experience the corollary effect of the hunger pandemic, which is not being able to eat healthy – a situation that can result in malnutrition and obesity.
Besides the World Bank, Bloomberg has projected that as many as 132 million more people than the World Bank projection will go hungry this year as the pandemic disruption of supply chains, disrupted distribution chains and grounding of economies takes its toll.
But the World Bank looks further.
According to it, by the year 2030, about a billion people will be faced with crippling hunger, an increase of about 200 million from the previous decade of 2010 to 2020. In the last decade, it was a little over 800 million.
Ironically, this is happening at a time of the celebration of global food surplus. The World Bank says that even hitherto comfortable countries may not be spared.
One thing that COVID-19 did, according to reports, was to increase the gap between the super-rich and super poor. Owners of social media platforms are declaring crazy profits as the number of pauperised world population grow. Millions have been thrown out of work due to the lockdown. Those affected are those with a high dependency ratio, and the stimulus package by the various governments only ended up shoring up global equities.
What makes the situation unmatched: The massive spike is happening at a time of enormous global food surpluses. And it’s happening in every part of the world, with new levels of food insecurity forecast for countries that used to have relative stability.
As many as 12,000 people could die a day from hunger linked to Covid-19 by the end ot this year, potentially more than those perishing from the virus itself, accordint to estimates by charity Oxfam International.
There are fears of political backlash through revolutions, as happened in France in 1775. Military incursions into government may be the end result in some African countries, as is happening in Mali.
“We have to make sure that we’re addressing gender inequality — if the international community is not doing that, we will fail to avoid the worst of the hunger crisis,” said Tonya Rawe, a director at hunger relief and advocacy group Care.
