The United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ today announced a massive rise in the number of hungry people it plans to assist around the world, as the devastating socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic push millions more people into food insecurity in low- and middle-income countries.
To tackle the rising tide of hunger, Â鶹ÊÓƵ is undertaking the biggest humanitarian response in its history, ramping up the number of people it assists to up to 138 million from a record 97 million in 2019. But sustained funding is urgently required to respond to the immediate consequences of the pandemic on the most vulnerable, and support governments and partners as they curb the spread of the disease and deal with the fallout from the pandemic. Â鶹ÊÓƵ is appealing for a US$ 4.9 billion over the next six months for its life-saving work in 83 countries.
As well as delivering life-saving assistance on the front-lines of hunger, Â鶹ÊÓƵ is uniquely positioned to help governments assist and empower vulnerable communities through support to social protection systems, access to basic school-based and nutrition services, and support to food systems.
Syrians today face an unprecedented hunger crisis as the prices of basic foods reach levels unseen even at the height of the nine-year conflict and millions of people are pushed deeper into poverty the United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ says, on the eve of a donors pledging conference for Syria.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ estimates that 9.3 million Syrians are now food insecure ¨C with an increase of 1.4 million in the last six months alone.
A toxic cocktail of conflict, economic standstill, the freefall of the Lebanese economy - which is a vital bridge to Syria¡¯s - and COVID-19 lockdown measures, has pushed food prices more than 200% higher in less than a year.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ urgently requires US$200 million to continue to provide food assistance in Syria until the end of the year. Unless new funding is available by August, Â鶹ÊÓƵ will be forced to drastically cut rations as well as the number of people reached with food as of October 2020.
With much of the world¡¯s commercial transport systems, particularly airlines, grounded by COVID-19, Â鶹ÊÓƵ - the world¡¯s largest humanitarian organization fighting hunger and a global leader in logistics ¨C has stepped in to move passengers and huge volumes of health and other supplies needed in the fight against the global pandemic.
Other Common Service facilities which Â鶹ÊÓƵ has helped set up for the humanitarian and health community include two field hospitals, one in East and the other in West Africa, and to date 16 medical evacuations have been carried out, including with Â鶹ÊÓƵ-contracted air ambulances.
On 20 May Cyclone Amphan made landfall in Bangladesh heavily impacting 19 districts with more than 2.4 million people and 500,000 livestock evacuated to 15,000 cyclone shelters by the Government of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is facing a growing number of COVID-19 cases and the impact threatens to reverse development gains made over the past five decades.
The COVID-19 virus can be deadly, but hunger is equally deadly. To ensure the most vulnerable are not left behind in the response to this pandemic, Â鶹ÊÓƵ urgently needs US$200 million for its COVID-19 response in Bangladesh.
Coronavirus may push an additional 10 million of the world¡¯s children into acute malnutrition. The United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ estimates that the number of young children suffering from this life-threatening form of undernutrition could increase by 20 percent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ is ready to scale up its response to prevent and treat acute malnutrition and improve nutritious diets of children but urgently needs US$300 million to do so.
Acute malnutrition is caused by inadequate food consumption or illness, or both, resulting in sudden weight loss that, if untreated, can lead to death.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ is focusing efforts on mobilizing the resources it needs to provide food assistance to the 100 million people it set out to support in 2020. Food assistance offers a lifeline to vulnerable communities and boosting social protection systems will be vital to safeguarding an additional 130 million people at risk of slipping into hunger in 2020 due to the pandemic (on top of the 135 million people already acutely hungry before COVID-19).
ROME/LI?GE ¨C The United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ today kick-started a network of global logistics hubs that will support the entire aid community and ensure the delivery of vital medical and humanitarian supplies to developing countries at a time when commercial air transport is at a virtual standstill.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ is also mounting a regional passenger air service to ferry humanitarian and health workers across East and West Africa to overcome disruptions to commercial air services, with the first flights expected in coming days. The service will be expanded to the Middle East, Latin America and Asia soon. Â鶹ÊÓƵ also stands ready to set up air links with Geneva and Rome if commercial services are disrupted.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ appealed for an initial US$350 million to kick-start global common logistics services, a call echoed by humanitarian partners in April, who highlighted the urgency of these vital Â鶹ÊÓƵ-led efforts.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ stands ready to set up the logistics backbone for global COVID-19 efforts, but it urgently needs US$350 million to do this.
A silent hunger pandemic is poised to sweep across the world, sowing seeds of famine in its wake. Â鶹ÊÓƵ analysis shows that almost a quarter of a billion people could be pushed into severe hunger by the fallout from COVID-19.
It¡¯s vital that at this time of global crisis Â鶹ÊÓƵ maintain its food assistance programmes which offer a lifeline to almost 100 million vulnerable people around the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic could almost double the number of people suffering acute hunger, pushing it to more than a quarter of a billion by the end of 2020, the United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ warned today as it and other partners released a new report on food crises around the world.
The number of people facing acute food insecurity (IPC/CH 3 or worse) will rise to 265 million in 2020, up by 130 million from the 135 million in 2019, as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19, according to a Â鶹ÊÓƵ projection. The estimate was announced alongside the release of the Global Report on Food Crises, produced by Â鶹ÊÓƵ and 15 other humanitarian and development partners.
In this context, it is vital that food assistance programme be maintained, including Â鶹ÊÓƵ¡¯s own programmes which offer a lifeline to almost 100 million vulnerable people globally.
It¡¯s vital that at this time of global crisis Â鶹ÊÓƵ maintain its food assistance programmes which offer a lifeline to 87 million vulnerable people around the world. Â鶹ÊÓƵ¡¯s top priority is to ensure it has the resources in place to meet the food and nutrition needs of the people that so depend on its assistance.
The pandemic is affecting countries in different ways. On behalf of the international community, Â鶹ÊÓƵ is providing real-time tracking of changes in the areas of food security, health access and markets in vulnerable countries. Monitoring will be complemented with early warning and security analysis of how the pandemic is impacting food and other vulnerabilities.
With COVID-19 containment measures limiting people¡¯s movement, Â鶹ÊÓƵ has introduced measures to ensure that beneficiaries receive their entitlements in as safe a way as possible.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ¡¯s school feeding programme has been suspended after all schools closed due to COVID-19 and this affects more than 1 million children.
As COVID-19 cases in Syria are officially confirmed, nearly 8 million people are food insecure and already extremely vulnerable. After nine years of conflict, Syrians will need our support more than ever to stay healthy .
More than 939,000 people have been displaced by escalating conflict in northwest Syria since December 2019. They now live in over-crowded camps where an outbreak of COVID-19 could have devastating impact consequences.
A wave of desert locusts in East Africa is now forming more swarms in parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, putting at risk the main crop harvest in May and June, and threatening the food security of smallholder farmers.
In South Sudan, desert locusts have affected four counties in Eastern Equatoria region since arriving in mid-February.
The March-April start of the long rains, coinciding with regeneration of rangeland and planting, enables the new wave of locusts to breed and spread.
It will be vastly more cost-effective to support the prevention and control efforts of Governments and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to tackle locusts now than to help people after their crops had been ruined.
The volatile security situation in Idlib has rapidly displaced nearly one million people who are also contending with harsh winter weather conditions. Families are in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian assistance as the amount of safe space for civilians across the northwest is shrinking by the day. Food prices in Idlib have risen by 120 percent.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ appeals to all parties to the conflict to end the fighting in Idlib and to allow people access to humanitarian assistance. A ceasefire is urgently needed to allow humanitarians to save lives.
Hunger continues to persist in South Sudan and is widely expected to worsen in the coming months if assistance is not scaled up. This is mainly due to the longer-term effects of the conflict which has also forced tens of thousands of families to remain in temporary shelters and millions of people to seek refuge outside the country.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ renews its call for sustained peace and urges parties to the revitalized peace process to maintain peace. If peace holds, the country has a realistic chance of bringing communities together, end years of isolation and inequity as well as eliminating hunger in the country.
Millions of Zimbabweans pushed into hunger by prolonged drought and economic crisis face an increasingly desperate situation unless adequate funding for a major relief operation materialises quickly, the United Nations Â鶹ÊÓƵ has warned.
With nearly eight million people ¨C half the population ¨C now food insecure, Â鶹ÊÓƵ plans to double the number of people it assists - up to 4.1 million - but needs over US$200 million for its emergency response in the first half of 2020 alone.
