DAVOS – The head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning World Food Program says support from donors like the United States and Germany has enabled him to postpone – albeit not completely avert – Famine in Somalia but emphasized that “we are not out yet”.
WFP Executive Director David Beasley said countries in the Horn of Africa are facing “unprecedented climate impacts”. years of droughtand the UN agency had expected to announce famine in Somalia before donors “showed up in a big way.”
“And we were able to – I don’t know if the right word is ‘turn off hunger’ – but we definitely did it moved it‘ he told The Associated Press Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday. “So far we have been lucky with the climate shocks in Somalia. But we’re not out of that yet.”
But he warned that “we could still technically end up with famine in Somalia” because “famine-like conditions” already exist.
“Once you officially declare it’s a famine, it’s too late,” Beasley said.
Famine is the extreme lack of food and a significant death rate from starvation or malnutrition combined with diseases such as cholera. A formal declaration of hunger means data shows that more than a fifth of households face extreme food shortages, more than 30% of children are acutely malnourished and more than two in 10,000 people die every day.
Beasley, who announced plans to step down in April, has used his political experience as former Republican governor of South Carolina to wrestle more World Food Program funding from Washington under both the Biden and Trump administrations.
The United States announced $411 million in additional funding for the Somalia crisis last month after a report by the United Nations and other experts said more than 8 million Somalis are facing severe food insecurity due to drought and drought high food prices. Thousands have died.
When Beasley took the job in 2017, around 80 million people worldwide were starving and suffering from chronic hunger. Conflict, climate change and COVID-19 have caused the number to rise to 350 million today due to economic devastation and supply chain disruptions.
“You think it can’t get any worse. Then the breadbasket of the world will be closed: Ukraine,” said Beasley. “Now (the country has) the longest bread lines in the world,” he alluded Russia’s war that has turned food production around and Exports from Ukraine.
___
AP journalists Masha Macpherson and David Keyton in Davos, Switzerland, contributed to this report.
___
Watch AP’s coverage of the World Economic Forum meeting at https://apnews.com/hub/world-economic-forum and the food crisis https://apnews.com/hub/food-crisis.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, transcribed or redistributed without permission.
