2.4 Bln People Did Not Have Constant Access To Food

 2.4 Bln People Did Not Have Constant Access To Food, Hunger Stunts 148 Mln Children, Says UN Report in World — by Countercurrents Collective — 15/07/2023

 

Hunger

 

Approximately 2.4 billion individuals, largely women and residents of rural areas, did not have consistent access to nutritious, safe, and sufficient food in 2022, said UN’s latest report.

 

The U.N. delivered grim news on global food security Wednesday: As many as 783 million faced hunger, and 148 million children suffered from stunted growth.

 

More than 3.1 billion people – 42% of the global population – were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2021, an increase of 134 million people compared to 2019, it said.

 

The UN warned: The world is at risk of failing to meet its self-imposed obligation to see hunger eradicated by 2030.

 

About 735 million people worldwide faced chronic hunger last year, an estimated 122 million more than in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN has said, in its latest report — The State of Food Security and Nutrition 2023, Urbanization, agrifood systems, transformation and healthy diets across the rural urban continuum (July 2023) — on food security.

 

While countries in South America and many regions of Asia saw a decline in hunger rates thanks to economic recovery from the pandemic, the document reports, hunger is still on the rise in Western Asia, the Caribbean, and in all subregions of Africa. Among the main issues threatening progress towards the global goal to end hunger are conflicts, including the conflict in Ukraine, as well as weather-related events.

 

According to the projections presented in the document, 600 million people globally will be living undernourished by 2030, meaning that the world is “far off track” to meet the United Nations’ goal of eradicating hunger.

 

The pledge was made in 2015 when the UN adopted its Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes 17 goals to be achieved, among them “creating a world free of hunger by 2023.”

 

Five U.N. agencies said in the report that while global hunger numbers stalled between 2021 and 2022 many places are facing deepening food crises. They pointed to Western Asia, the Caribbean and Africa, where 20% of the continent’s population is experiencing hunger, more than twice the global average.

 

“Recovery from the global pandemic has been uneven, and the war in Ukraine has affected the nutritious food and healthy diets,” Qu Dongyu, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement. “This is the `new normal’ where climate change, conflict, and economic instability are pushing those on the margins even further from safety.”

 

FAO chief economist Maximo Torero said the FAO food price index has been declining for about 15 months, but “food inflation has continued.”

 

According to the report, people’s access to healthy diets has deteriorated across the world.

 

Key Findings     

 

Global Hunger: While global hunger numbers have stalled between 2021 and 2022, there are many places in the world facing deepening food crises. Over 122 million more people are facing hunger in the world since 2019 due to the pandemic and repeated weather shocks and conflicts, including the war in Ukraine.

Nutritional Access: Approximately 2.4 billion individuals, largely women and residents of rural areas, did not have consistent access to nutritious, safe, and sufficient food in 2022.

Child Malnutrition: Child malnutrition is still alarmingly high. In 2021, 22.3% (148.1 million) children were stunted, 6.8% (45 million) were wasted, and 5.6% (37 million) were overweight.

Urbanization’s Impact on Diet: As urbanization accelerates, there is a noticeable increase in the consumption of processed and convenience foods, leading to a spike in overweight and obesity rates across urban, peri-urban, and rural areas.

Rural Dependence on Global Markets: Previously self-sustaining rural regions, especially in Africa and Asia, are now found to be increasingly dependent on national and global food markets.

Future Outlook: By 2050, it’s projected that 70% of the global population will reside in cities. This significant demographic shift necessitates a reorientation of food systems to cater to these new urban populations and eradicate hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition.

UN Secretary-General Urges Adaption To Ballooning Urban Population

 

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message at the launch of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 report, in New York on Wednesday:

 

In a world of plenty, no one should go hungry.  And no one should suffer the cruelty of malnutrition. But, this report on the state of food security and nutrition paints a stark picture of our reality.

 

Conflict, climate, economic shocks and inequalities are driving food insecurity.  Up to 780 million people do not have enough to eat.  More than 3 billion cannot afford a healthy diet.  And by 2030, it is projected that more than 600 million people will still be living with hunger.

 

There are rays of hope:  some regions are on track to achieve some 2030 nutrition targets. But, overall, we need an intense and immediate global effort to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals.

 

We must build resilience against the crises and shocks that drive food insecurity — from conflict to climate.  We must protect gains in child nutrition, including from risks posed by rising obesity.  And we must ensure food systems are fit for the future.  That means adapting to the reality of a ballooning urban population — the focus of this year’s report.

 

I urge Governments to respond to our call for an SDG Stimulus, to scale up affordable long-term financing for all countries in need, by at least $500 billion a year.  This will help countries ensure their people have access to affordable, nutritious food. And I urge all Governments to make the most of the UN Food Systems Summit and Stocktaking Moment in Rome this month to 

Relationship between inequality , poverty and diversity

 

Relationship between inequality , poverty and diversity

 

Introduction

Inequality

Inequality refers to the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and wealth within a society. It can manifest in various forms, such as income inequality, educational disparities, or uneven access to healthcare. Inequality often leads to social and economic disadvantages for certain groups or individuals, limiting their chances of upward mobility and creating a cycle of poverty. Inequality, is by definition a relative concept. Inequality is concerned with summarizing the unevenness in the distribution of resources and opportunities among individuals, among groups in a population or among countries.

Poverty

Poverty, on the other hand, is generally understood as a state of deprivation or lack of material resources necessary for a decent standard of living. It is closely related to inequality because unequal distributions of resources can result in higher levels of poverty. Marginalized or disadvantaged groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities, women, or people with disabilities, are often disproportionately affected by poverty due to systemic discrimination and limited access to opportunities.

Diversity refers to the presence of a variety of different social and cultural groups within a society. Diversity encompasses differences in race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and other dimensions of identity. It is important to recognize that diversity can exist within different socioeconomic strata, including both privileged and marginalized groups.

Analysis

The relationship between inequality, poverty, and diversity is complex and multifaceted. However, there are a number of ways in which these three concepts intersect.

·                                 Inequality can lead to poverty. When resources are distributed unevenly, those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder are more likely to experience poverty. This is because they have less access to opportunities, such as education and healthcare, which can help them escape poverty.

·                                 Poverty can lead to social exclusion. When people are poor, they are often excluded from mainstream society. This can be due to a number of factors, such as their lack of resources, their social status, or their cultural background. Social exclusion can make it difficult for people to escape poverty, as it limits their access to opportunities and resources.

·                                 Diversity can exacerbate inequality. When different groups of people have different levels of access to resources, this can lead to inequality. For example, if one group of people is disproportionately poor, this can create a situation where they are excluded from opportunities and resources. This can further perpetuate inequality and poverty.

 

Studies find that ethnic and linguistic fractionalization contributes to poverty levels. good economic policies alone are not necessarily sufficient to reduce poverty and promote growth.

 

Ethnic diversity plays a significant role, and therefore needs to be considered when formulating policies to reduce poverty the central point is that, it is impossible to achieve the goals of sustainable development if cultural imbalance that exacerbate inequality is ignored. Social scientists have suggested that cultural diversity in a nation leads to societal instability. However, societal instability may be affected not only by within-nation or α diversity, but also diversity between a nation and its neighbours or β diversity. It is also necessary to distinguish different domains of diversity, namely linguistic, ethnic and religious, and to distinguish between the direct effects of diversity on societal instability, and effects that are mediated by economic conditions.

 

 

 

 

The above table does suggest that inequality ay well be the cause of increased poverty in a society institutively this appears to be a valid hypotheses, the above Table if restricted to first 7 or all 10(r² 0.656) entries would support this statement but the whole available data for more than 130 or more nation states would not result in such a clear cut conclusion 

In the roughly three decades leading up to the most recent recession, looking at the officially measured poverty rate, educational upgrading and overall income growth were the two biggest poverty-reducing factors, while income inequality was the largest poverty-increasing factor. Relative to these factors, the racial composition of the U.S. population over this period (the growth of nonwhite populations with higher likelihoods of poverty) and changes in family structure (the growth of single mother households) have contributed much less to poverty, particularly in recent years.

 

The figure below plots the impact of these economic and demographic factors on the official poverty rate from 1979 to 2007. The impact of income inequality and income growth were quantitatively large, but in the opposite directions.

 

 

 Had income growth been equally distributed, which in this analysis means that all families’ incomes would have grown at the pace of the average, the poverty rate would have been 5.5 points lower, essentially, 44 percent lower than what it was. 

This rise in inequality, in turn, has been dominated by inequality of pre-tax, pre-transfer, market incomes. This means that making real progress on pushing the poverty rate down going forward would be helped enormously by checking or even reversing this growth in market income inequality. In concrete terms, this means we need wages to go up for those at the bottom and middle of the income distribution.

Conclusions

 

Within-nation linguistic diversity is associated with reduced economic performance, which, in turn, increases societal instability. Nations which differ linguistically from their neighbors are also less stable. However, religious diversity between neighboring nations has the opposite effect, decreasing societal instability. income inequality, a topic that has long been a matter of concern among economists, sociologists, and policy makers. A large body of literature can be found on the causes and effects of income inequality in human societies. Researchers have examined a number of factors - both internal such as education (xxx), economic policy of the government (Picketty 2013), political environment (Mullen, 2013), trade policy (Winters, McCulloch and McKay, 2004) as well as external such as colonization (Charles-Coll, 2013) , globalization (Meschi and Vivarelli, 2007; Ravallion, 2004; Kentor, 2001), technology (Jaumotte, Lull and Papageorgiou, 2008), etc., to explain the causes of income inequality in the role of culture in income inequality is that culture plays an important role by affecting government policies on taxation and spending, trade policies, and economic philosophy that would affect income inequality. 

However, diversity can also be a force for good in addressing inequality and poverty. When different groups of people work together, they can pool their resources and knowledge to create solutions that benefit everyone. For example, a diverse group of people may be able to come up with new ideas for how to address poverty, or they may be able to identify and address the root causes of inequality.

·                                 Inequality can be both a cause and a consequence of poverty. In some cases, inequality can lead to poverty, as those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder are less likely to have the resources they need to escape poverty. However, in other cases, poverty can lead to inequality, as those who are poor are less likely to have the same opportunities as those who are not poor.

·                                 Diversity can be a source of strength in addressing inequality and poverty. When different groups of people work together, they can pool their resources and knowledge to create solutions that benefit everyone. This is because different groups of people often have different perspectives and experiences, which can help them to identify and address the root causes of inequality and poverty.

In many cases, inequality and poverty can be exacerbated by a lack of diversity or by the unequal treatment of diverse groups. Discrimination and prejudice can hinder the social and economic advancement of marginalized communities, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and further exacerbating inequality. Inclusive policies and practices that value diversity and promote equal opportunities for all individuals, regardless of their background, can help address these issues.

 

·                                 There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of inequality, poverty, and diversity. The best approach will vary depending on the specific context. However, it is clear that these three concepts are interconnected, and that they all play a role in shaping the lives of people around the world.

 

Ultimately, the relationship between inequality, poverty, and diversity is complex and multifaceted. However, it is clear that these three concepts are interconnected, and that they all play a role in shaping the lives of people around the world.

Furthermore, addressing inequality and poverty requires a comprehensive approach that takes into account the intersectionality of different forms of disadvantage. Individuals who belong to multiple marginalized groups may face compounded challenges and higher levels of inequality and poverty.

In summary, inequality, poverty, and diversity are interconnected concepts. Inequality can contribute to higher levels of poverty, and both inequality and poverty can disproportionately affect diverse or marginalized groups. Recognizing and addressing these interconnections is crucial for fostering a more equitable and inclusive society.