Drive to End Global Hunger Has Stalled, United Nations Warns

A goal to eliminate global hunger by 2030 looks increasingly impossible to achieve today -(Reuters)
A goal to eliminate global hunger by 2030 looks increasingly impossible to achieve today -(Reuters)
TT

Drive to End Global Hunger Has Stalled, United Nations Warns

A goal to eliminate global hunger by 2030 looks increasingly impossible to achieve today -(Reuters)
A goal to eliminate global hunger by 2030 looks increasingly impossible to achieve today -(Reuters)

A goal to eliminate global hunger by 2030 looks increasingly impossible to achieve, with the number of people suffering chronic hunger barely changed over the past year, a UN report said on Wednesday.

The annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report said around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023 -- one in 11 people globally and one in five in Africa -- as conflict, climate change and economic crises take their toll.

David Laborde, director of the division within the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which helps prepare the survey, said that although progress had been made in some regions, the situation had deteriorated at a global level.

"We are in a worse situation today than nine years ago when we launched this goal to eradicate hunger by 2030," he told Reuters, saying challenges such as climate change and regional wars had grown more severe than envisaged even a decade ago.

If current trends continue, about 582 million people will be chronically undernourished at the end of the decade, half of them in Africa, the report warned.

A broader objective to ensure regular access to adequate food has also stalled over the past three years, with 29% of the global population, or 2.33 billion people, experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023.

Underscoring stark inequalities, some 71.5% of people in low-income countries could not afford a healthy diet last year, against 6.3% in high-income countries.

While famines are easy to spot, poor nutrition is more insidious but can nonetheless scar people for life, stunting both the physical and mental development of babies and children, and leaving adults more vulnerable to infections and illnesses.

Laborde said international aid linked to food security and nutrition amounted to $76 billion a year, or 0.07% of the world's total annual economic output.

"I think we can do better to deliver this promise about living on a planet where no one is hungry," he said.

Regional trends varied significantly, with hunger continuing to rise in Africa, where growing populations, myriad wars and climate upheaval weighed heavily. By contrast, Asia has seen little change and Latin America has improved.

"South America has very developed social protection programs that allows them to target interventions so they can effectively move out of hunger in a very fast way," said FAO's chief economist Maximo Torero.

"In the case of Africa, we have not observed that."

The United Nations said the way the anti-hunger drive was financed had to change, with greater flexibility needed to ensure the countries most in need got help.

"We need to change how we do things to be better coordinated, to accept that not everyone should try to do everything but really be much more focused on what we are doing and where," said Laborde.

The report is compiled by the Rome-based FAO, the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development, its Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization and World Food Program.



US Sanctions 16 Allies of Venezuela's President over Accusations of Obstructing Election

A man holds a sign with the image of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and text that reads: 'Maduro, close the (Centro Penitenciario El Helicoide)' during a protest by the families of political prisoners in Venezuela demanding their release; in Caracas, Venezuela, 11 September 2024. EPA/RONALD PENA R
A man holds a sign with the image of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and text that reads: 'Maduro, close the (Centro Penitenciario El Helicoide)' during a protest by the families of political prisoners in Venezuela demanding their release; in Caracas, Venezuela, 11 September 2024. EPA/RONALD PENA R
TT

US Sanctions 16 Allies of Venezuela's President over Accusations of Obstructing Election

A man holds a sign with the image of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and text that reads: 'Maduro, close the (Centro Penitenciario El Helicoide)' during a protest by the families of political prisoners in Venezuela demanding their release; in Caracas, Venezuela, 11 September 2024. EPA/RONALD PENA R
A man holds a sign with the image of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and text that reads: 'Maduro, close the (Centro Penitenciario El Helicoide)' during a protest by the families of political prisoners in Venezuela demanding their release; in Caracas, Venezuela, 11 September 2024. EPA/RONALD PENA R

The US government on Thursday responded to Venezuela’s disputed July presidential election by imposing sanctions against 16 allies of President Nicolás Maduro, accusing them of obstructing the vote and carrying out human rights abuses.

Those targeted by the Treasury Department include the head of the country’s high court, leaders of state security forces and prosecutors. The move came days after the departure into exile of Edmundo González Urrutia, the former diplomat who represented the main opposition parties and claimed to have won the July 28 presidential election by a wide margin.

Venezuela’s electoral authorities declared Maduro the victor hours after polls closed, but unlike previous presidential elections, they never released detailed vote tallies to back up their claim arguing that the National Electoral Council’s website was hacked. To the surprise of supporters and opponents, González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado shortly afterward announced not only that their campaign had obtained vote tallies from over two-thirds of the electronic voting machines used in the election but also that they had published them online to show the world that Maduro had lost.

Global condemnation over the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask Venezuela’s high court, stacked with ruling party loyalists, to audit the results. The court reaffirmed his victory.

Experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center, which observed the election at the invitation of Maduro’s government, determined the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility. The UN experts stopped short of validating the opposition’s claim to victory but said the faction’s voting records published online appear to exhibit all of the original security features.
“Rather than respecting the will of the Venezuelan people as expressed at the ballot box, Maduro and his representatives have falsely claimed victory while repressing and intimidating the democratic opposition in an illegitimate attempt to cling to power by force,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

According to The Associated Press, the State Department said it is placing new visa restrictions on Maduro allies who are accused of impeding the vote and repressing Venezuelans. The department did not name those individuals.

The potential effect of the individual sanctions and visa restrictions announced Thursday is unclear. Previously punished Maduro loyalists still play key roles in Venezuela's government, including as vice president, attorney general and defense minister.

Venezuela’s government released a statement that characterized the latest set of sanctions as a “rude act that seeks to ingratiate itself with a political class that has resorted to fascist and violent practices to overthrow, without success,” Maduro.