700 million people don't know if they will eat again: UN food chief

A global hunger crisis has left more than 700 million people not knowing when or if they will eat again, and demand for food is rising relentlessly while humanitarian funding is drying up, the head of the United Nations food agency has said.

World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain told the UN Security Council on Thursday that because of the lack of funding, the agency has been forced to cut food rations for millions of people, and “more cuts are on the way”.

“We are now living with a series of concurrent and long-term crises that will continue to fuel global humanitarian needs,” she said. “This is the humanitarian community’s new reality — our new normal — and we will be dealing with the fallout for years to come .”

The WFP chief said the agency estimates that nearly 47 million people in over 50 countries are just one step from famine — and a staggering 45 million children under the age of five are now estimated to suffer from acute malnutrition.

According to WFP estimates from 79 countries where the Rome-based agency operates, up to 783 million people — one in 10 of the world’s population — still go to bed hungry every night. More than 345 million people are facing high levels of food insecurity this year, an increase of almost 200 million people from early 2021 before the Covid-19 pandemic, the agency said.

At the root of the soaring numbers, WFP said, is “a deadly combination of conflict, economic shocks, climate extremes and soaring fertiliser prices.”

The economic fallout from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have pushed food prices out of the reach of millions of people across the world at the same time that high fertiliser prices have caused falling production of maize, rice, soybeans and wheat, the agency said.

“Business cannot succeed in a failing world”

Michael Miebach, CEO of Mastercard, told the council that “humanitarian relief has long been the domain of government” and development institutions, and the private sector was seen as a source of financial donations for supplies.

“Money is still important, but companies can offer so much more,” he said. “The private sector stands ready to tackle the challenges at hand in partnership with the public sector.”

Jared Cohen, president of global affairs at Goldman Sachs, told the council that the revenue of many multinational companies rivals the GDP of some of the Group of 20 countries with the largest economies. And he said five American companies and many of their global counterparts have over 500,000 workers — more than the population of up to 20 UN member nations.

Cohen said businesses can fulfill those responsibilities during crises first by not scrambling “to reinvent the wheel every time,” but by drawing on institutional memory and partnering with other firms and the public sector.

"A moment of great peril"

Lana Nusseibeh, the United Arab Emirates ambassador, said the UN appealed for over $54 billion this year, “and until now, 80 percent of those funds remain unfulfilled,” which shows that “we are facing a system in crisis.”

She said public-private partnerships that were once useful additions are now crucial to humanitarian work.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the funding gap has left the world’s most vulnerable people “in a moment of great peril.”

She said companies have stepped up, including in Haiti and Ukraine and to help refugees in the United States, but for too long, “we have turned to the private sector exclusively for financing.”