Attachments
Executive Summary
Acute Hunger is Becoming the New Normal: The World Is Facing the Largest Food Crisis in Modern History
• After 60 years in existence, WFP’s mandate, work and raison d’être are more relevant than ever. Hundreds of millions are at risk of worsening hunger unless action is taken now to respond at scale to the drivers of the global crisis: conflict, shrinking humanitarian space, climate shocks and disasters, and persistent domestic food, fuel, and fertilizer price inflation. The complex interplay between these drivers is making life harder each day for the world’s most vulnerable.
• It is estimated that 70 percent of people facing crisis, or worse, levels of acute food insecurity in 2021 lived in conflict affected countries, and all 7 countries where famine-like conditions are expected in 2023 are experiencing high levels of armed violence. 846,000 people residing in 7 countries are expected to suffer famine-like conditions during the year.
• The scale of the current global hunger and malnutrition crisis is enormous, with an expected 345.2 million people projected to be food insecure – more than double the number in 2020.
• An estimated 43.3 million people across 51 countries are at serious risk of famine.
• The world’s children are facing an epidemic of malnutrition. More than 30 million children are wasted in the 15 most affected countries. A five percent rise in the real price of food increases the risk of wasting by almost nine percent globally.
• Climate shocks and disasters continue to drive food and nutrition insecurity, and in some cases, exacerbate conflicts. Recent events in Türkiye and Syria, historic floods in Pakistan, Zambia and Mozambique, heatwaves as well as failed rains in the Horn of Africa, Iraq, Syria and Angola, and the increasing possibilities of El Niño and further global temperature rise, exemplify the need for continued disaster preparedness and response.
• Prices remain at multi-year highs, despite the recent fall in food, fertiliser and energy prices. Limited access to food and the inputs needed to produce it comes at a time when most low-income countries already struggle with looming or actual debt distress. An increase in interest rates in 2023 will only exacerbate this situation. A slowing global economy further adds to the challenges, leaving little reason to expect an improvement in global food security in 2023.
It Is No Longer Business as Usual: WFP Has Scaled-Up to Save and Change Lives in an Unprecedented Way
• WFP assisted about 158 million people in 2022, a historic high.
• In 2023, WFP plans to reach 149.6 million people with full rations.
• WFP’s use of cash-based transfers continues to grow further and faster than ever before. In 2022, WFP disbursed USD 3.3 billion in 72 countries, an increase of 42% compared to 2021.
• In 2022, WFP had reached an estimated 19.6 million children through school feeding in 56 countries.
• The Immediate Response Account (IRA) played a major part in timely response to sudden and underfunded emergencies in 2022 and the Türkiye-Syria earthquake in 2023. In 2022, USD 385 million was allocated from the IRA to 36 country operations.
• WFP’s investments and efforts to gain access in contexts of armed conflict have seen some progress in averting the worst food security outcomes in Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan and Burkina Faso. The biggest breakthroughs were in Yemen and Ethiopia where investments and efforts to gain access saw tremendous returns once conditions of widespread active armed conflict were curtailed through ceasefires.