For Mebrhit Hailay, a 28-year-old resident of Shire, Tigray, providing at least one meal a day for her three children had proved to be the exception, not the norm. A BBC investigation into the region’s hunger crisis published in August 2023 shed light on the catastrophic effects of rampant starvation on Mebrhit and others like her – people affected directly by prolonged drought, civil conflict and the increasing scarcity of aid deliveries to the region. In its sixth consecutive year without adequate rains, Ethiopia sits at number two on the International Rescue Committee’s 2023 Emergency Watchlist; an estimated 28.6 million people in the country are in need of humanitarian aid, with 20 million of them suffering from food insecurity. The 2022 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) categorized over 400,000 Ethiopians under Phase 5 of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), designated as “Catastrophe/Famine” – the most dire of the IPC’s classifications for measuring food insecurity in a region, and the highest number of people to be placed under Phase 5 in the history of the GRFC.

Although one of the most extreme, food scarcity in Ethiopia is just one example of a widespread global crisis. In 2021, the GRFC estimated that up to 193 million people across 53 countries and territories were in IPC Phase 3 or higher (ranging from meeting bare minimum food requirements to extreme starvation). As of 2023, the World Food Programme estimates that up to 345 million people across the world are grappling with prolonged hunger crises, with military conflict being the largest catalyst for exacerbated food scarcity, followed closely by climate change impact and skyrocketing agricultural costs. The Global Hunger Index predicts that, even with efforts undertaken to meet Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger), the SDG’s 2030 target for eliminating global hunger is, at the moment, far from feasible.

Even so, institutions working to address hunger are targeting the issue at every level of engagement – from innovating systematic resilience to providing on-the-ground aid relief.

Read the full article about combating food insecurity by Aneesh Chatterjee at Global Washington.