A GOOD friend from the University of Malaya, Distinguished Professor Datuk Rajah Rasiah forwarded this poignant quote: "The hunger virus kills about 8,000 children a day, and the vaccine for it exists. It's called 'food'. But you won't hear about it in the media because hunger doesn't kill the rich."
The award of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Programme (WFP) is a step forward in recognising the seriousness of the global food crisis.
It draws attention to the sustained efforts to fight hunger and famine from the grassroots to the highest levels of global governance.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee declared the WFP winner of the prestigious award "for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict". Chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said the committee wanted to "turn the eyes of the world to the millions of people who suffer from or face the threat of hunger".
The committee stressed the link between armed conflict and hunger — something the WFP also recently reminded us.
Almost 80 per cent of all chronic malnourished children inhabit countries affected by conflict. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity and famines, and the number of hungry people could increase to an anticipated 270 million, with the most acute suffering experienced in conflict zones.
The 4th annual Global Report on Food Crises 2020, involving 16 partner organisations including the WFP, has identified several drivers of acute food insecurity. Conflict/insecurity was still the main cause of food crises in 2019, but weather extremes and economic shocks became increasingly significant.
Over half of the 77 million acutely food-insecure people where conflict was identified as the primary driver were in the Middle East and Asia. Regional crises continued to drive acute food insecurity, particularly in the Lake Chad Basin and Central Sahel. Africa had the largest share of acutely food-insecure people badly affected by weather events, particularly in the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa,followed by Central America and Pakistan. In East Africa, armed conflicts and other tensions, particularly in South Sudan, led to large numbers seeking refuge in neighbouring countries and economic crises are impacting acute food insecurity levels in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Haiti and the Sudan.
Of the estimated 79 million displaced people worldwide in the middle of 2019, 20 million were refugees, and over half hosted in countries with high numbers of acutely food-insecure people. Even before the pandemic, parts of East Africa and South Asia were already facing severe food shortages caused by drought and the worst locus infestations for decades.
Earlier this year, the WFP warned that because of the pandemic, 265 million people would face acute food insecurity by the end of this year, almost double the number in 2019.
WFP executive director David Beasley said the world was facing "the worst humanitarian crisis since World War Two".
"At the same time as dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, we are on the brink of a hunger pandemic," he said.
Beasley noted that the WFP currently offers food assistance to almost 100 million people but warned that the coronavirus could make it difficult for them to be reached. As he rightly pointed out: "Where there is conflict, there is hunger. And where there is hunger, there is often conflict.
"Today is a reminder that food security, peace and stability go together. Without peace, we cannot achieve our global goal of zero hunger; and while there is hunger, we will never have a peaceful world."
As we contemplate how we could lessen their suffering, we should be thanking our lucky stars that Malaysia and the whole of Asean is still a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality as envisaged by our political leaders in 1971.
The writer is a senior fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia and a former science adviser to the United Nations secretary-general