In the shadow of COVID-19, the spectre of famine

The COVID-19 pandemic is monopolizing our attention. We are watching and suffering its consequences, first at home. Meanwhile, abroad, it has joined with other plagues to fuel a crisis that is escaping our attention. The kind of crisis that, because it unfolds in slow motion instead of exploding suddenly, flies under the radar: famine. Last November, the UN announced that four countries were teetering dangerously close to famine: Yemen, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, and northeast Nigeria. After decades of progress, this plague was almost thought to be a thing of the past. The most recent episodes of famine date back to 2011 in Somalia and, for a few months, in South Sudan in 2017. But since the middle of the last decade, the overall situation has been regressing. The causes include climatic disruptions (droughts, floods, etc.), economic shocks (rising food prices, unemployment, etc.) and, in the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries on the verge of famine are not among the most affected by infections, but their populations are no less impacted: market closures due to sanitary measures, global economic slowdown, and decrease in remittances sent by the diaspora. The main cause, however, is political: it is armed conflicts that drive hunger to its extreme. In Yemen, the war that has been raging since 2014 has so far thrown more than 16 million people into food insecurity. In South Sudan, there are more than seven million people suffering from hunger in the midst of a conflict that has refused to end since 2013. In northeastern Nigeria, the terrorist group Boko Haram has been plunging the population for years into a state bordering on famine: 3.4 million Nigerians now need assistance to eat. Burkina Faso is a newcomer to this mortiferous pack. With jihadist groups, vigilante militias and criminal gangs operating in its territory, this West African country, long considered a model of civil peace, is increasingly embroiled in the conflict that is plaguing the Sahel region. As a result, 1.1 million Burkinabe have been forced onto the roads and more than two million are now food insecure. Even though the situation has slightly improved recently, UN agencies flagged a further projected deterioration for the lean season, which will start soon. Close to three million people are expected to need humanitarian assistance. The country did experience a drought in 2012, which left 3.5 million people food insecure, but the crisis was temporary. The concern now, with the violence, is that the food crisis will become chronic, Antoine Renard, director of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Burkina Faso, told me. Last year's agricultural campaigns were quite good, but the violence has had a "very, very strong" impact, he said. In some areas, for example, harvests could not take place. For 2021, the UN estimates humanitarian needs for Burkina Faso at more than CDN$760-million. The WFP, the world's largest humanitarian organization and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020, estimates its needs alone at $415-million. With an annual contribution of $310-million, Canada is the fifth-largest donor to the WFP, behind the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. This is, all things considered, significant. But Canadian and global efforts are not keeping up with demand. Due to lack of funding, the WFP has had to cut back on each of the rations it distributes to Burkinabe in some areas by up to 50 per cent, says Renard. This is in addition to the growing needs of dozens of other organizations working on the ground, both local and international. And the needs are much greater in South Sudan and Yemen, for instance, where in fact small pockets of famine—the highest and deadliest phase of food insecurity—have already been technically declared. A month ago, the UN asked for $5-billion for Yemen alone in order to avoid a full-scale famine. Donors pledged only $2.2-billion. To make things worse, the UN announced at the end of March that the Democratic Republic of the Congo now had 27.3 million food insecure people, about a third of its population, making it home to the highest number of people in urgent need of food security assistance in the world. With such a lukewarm commitment from the donors, the world may very well see another plague make a deadly comeback soon. Jean-Frédéric Légaré-Tremblay is a fellow and communications adviser at the Montreal Centre for International Studies (CERIUM). The Hill Times