A wake-up call to the whole world – these are the latest figures from Deutsche Welthungerhilfe, said its President Marlehn Thieme on Tuesday morning in Berlin at the presentation their annual report. It is with great concern that since the outbreak of the corona pandemic, 150 million more people have suffered from hunger than in previous years – while at the same time the prices for food and its transport are exploding. Up to 828 million people are according to a recent UN report now chronically malnourished, that is about every tenth person. The agreed goal of eliminating global hunger by 2030 is out of reach from Welthungerhilfe’s point of view.
The pandemic and the consequences of climate change are two of the main reasons, but Russia’s attack on Ukraine is also one of the biggest global famine drivers. Firstly, because Russia blocks a large part of wheat exports from Ukraine, the fourth largest exporter in the world so far. On the other hand, because as an indirect consequence of the war, the prices of other foods have also risen worldwide – even more than was the case anyway due to the pandemic.
“The war against Ukraine acts like a fire accelerator for the existing crises,” says Thieme. It is particularly problematic that many countries are reacting to the food shortage with export bans. Welthungerhilfe appeals: The markets must remain open.
Putin isn’t the only one taking advantage of how vulnerable the global food markets are
Development Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD), who said on Tuesday in RBB on Tuesday that the Russian President was using hunger as a weapon of war, was also agreed. Welthungerhilfe boss Thieme said that this also applies to targeted attacks on warehouses or ports. She has seen this more and more frequently in recent years, not only in Ukraine, studies have also been carried out in South Sudan. “This is a form of warfare that takes us back to medieval conditions.”
The NGO is currently reaching out to despair from every country where it provides aid, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The people there are struggling with price increases for bread, grain and fruit of up to 60 percent. “For someone who only has three dollars a day to live on, it’s a disaster when the price of bread doubles,” says President Thieme. The situation in the Horn of Africa was particularly bad. In Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia is experiencing the worst drought in 40 years. Water sources have dried up, crops have dried up and livestock are starving.
“The war against Ukraine acts like a fire accelerator for the existing crises,” says Marlehn Thieme, President of Welthungerhilfe.
(Photo: Jörg Carstensen/dpa)
The amount of donations has also increased over the past year. Welthungerhilfe has never received so much financial support. Around 310 million euros could be spent in the fight against hunger in 2021, eleven percent more than in the previous year. In addition to the federal government and other public donors, private individuals donated 77.5 million euros – despite the pandemic and war.
Welthungerhilfe sees it as a positive signal that global politics has understood the priority of the missions. For example, an alliance for food security was formed at the G7 summit in Elmau and it was pledged to provide an additional 4.5 billion US dollars. According to Welthungerhilfe, however, a further 14 billion US dollars are needed to lift 500 million people out of hunger by 2030, as planned by the G7.