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One Billion People On Brink Of Hunger Globally – World Bank

Published

2 years ago

July 23, 2023

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Over one billion people are on the brink of hunger globally, a report in the newsletter of the World Bank has stated.

Majority of the affected people are in the low and middle income countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Quoting the July 2023 edition of the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) Market Monitor, the bank noted that geopolitical tensions that threaten the Black Sea Grain Initiative, including the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine were some of the factors that contributed to food shortages being experienced in some parts of the globe.

It also cited the damage to the ammonia pipeline between Russia and Ukraine.

“The flooding and disruption of irrigaton, along with the demand to reopen the pipeline, are increasing tensions and could lead to termination of the agreement, ultimately reducing Black Sea exports and undermining Ukraine’s production incentives.

“On June 6, 2023, the catastrophic collapse of the Kakhovka dam in southeastern Ukraine resulted in extensive flooding, posing a threat to drinking water supplies and raising concerns for agricultural areas that rely on the reservoir for irrigation.

“The Kakhovka dam and reservoir are crucial for agriculture, providing water through major irrigation canals to more than 500,000 hectares of farmland.

“The reservoir irrigates vast croplands that produce grains, oilseeds, vegetables, and fruits. The dam’s collapse has caused significant flooding downstream, affecting more than 40,000 hectares of land and numerous towns and villages.

Although the flooded agricultural area is relatively small, disconnection of the irrigation canals upstream has led to water scarcity for summer and winter crops, with implications for Ukraine’s agricultural exports,” the report said.

The Bank also noted that domestic food price inflation remains high around the world. “Information from the latest month between February 2023 and May 2023 for which food price inflation data are available shows high inflation in most low- and middle-income countries, with inflation higher than 5% in in 61.1% of low-income countries, 79.1% of lower-middle-income countries, and 70% of upper-middle-income countries, with many experiencing double-digit inflation.

“In addition, 78.9% of high-income countries are experiencing high food price inflation. The most-affected countries are in Africa, North America, Latin America, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia.

“In real terms, food price inflation exceeded overall inflation in 79.8% of the 163 countries where data is available.”

Listing some of the steps it has taken to ameliorate the situation, the World Bank said in April last year, it announced plans to make available $30 billion over a period of 15 months, including $12 billion in new projects to tackle food security crisis.

“The financing is to scale up short- and long-term responses along four themes to boost food and nutrition security, reduce risks, and strengthen food systems: (i) support producers and consumers, (ii) facilitate increased trade in food and trade inputs, (iii) support vulnerable households, and (iv) invest in sustainable food and nutrition security.

“The Bank has achieved its target of making $30 billion commitment for food and nutrition security response. Between April to December 2022, the Bank’s food and nutrition security commitments in new lending have passed the $12 billion mark – with almost half for Africa, which is one of the hardest hit regions by the food crisis.

“Some examples include: The $766 million West Africa Food Systems Resilience Program is working to increase preparedness against food insecurity and improve the resilience of food systems in West Africa.

“The program is increasing digital advisory services for agriculture and food crisis prevention and management, boosting adaption capacity of agriculture system actors, and investing in regional food market integration and trade to increase food security. An additional $345 million is currently under preparation for Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

“A $150 million grant for the second phase of the Yemen Food Security Response and Resilience Project, which will help address food insecurity, strengthen resilience and protect livelihoods. $50 million grant of additional financing for Tajikistan to mitigate food and nutrition insecurity impacts on households and enhance the overall resilience of the agriculture sector.

“A $125 million project in Jordan aims to strengthen the development the agriculture sector by enhancing its climate resilience, increasing competitiveness and inclusion, and ensuring medium- to long-term food security.

“A $300 million project in Bolivia that will contribute to increasing food security, market access and the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices.

“A $315 million loan to support Chad, Ghana and Sierra Leone to increase their preparedness against food insecurity and to improve the resilience of their food systems.

“A $500 million Emergency Food Security and Resilience Support Project to bolster Egypt’s efforts to ensure that poor and vulnerable households have uninterrupted access to bread, help strengthen the country’s resilience to food crises, and support to reforms that will help improve nutritional outcomes.

“A $130 million loan for Tunisia, seeking to lessen the impact of the Ukraine war by financing vital soft wheat imports and providing emergency support to cover barley imports for dairy production and seeds for smallholder farmers for the upcoming planting season.

“The $2.3 billion Food Systems Resilience Program for Eastern and Southern Africa, helps countries in Eastern and Southern Africa increase the resilience of the region’s food systems and ability to tackle growing food insecurity.

“The program will enhance inter-agency food crisis response also boost medium- and long-term efforts for resilient agricultural production, sustainable development of natural resources, expanded market access, and a greater focus on food systems resilience in policymaking.”

To prevent a worsening of the food and nutrition security crisis, the Bank said urgent actions are required to rescue hunger hotspots, facilitate trade, improve the functioning of markets, and enhance the role of the private sector, and reform and repurpose harmful subsidies with careful targeting and efficiency.
VANGUARD

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Wildfire Engulfs Mountain Near Western Canada City

Published

5 hours ago

August 13, 2025

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Nearly 20,000 residents of a community in western Canada were on standby on Wednesday as a wildfire engulfed a mountain overlooking the city of Port Alberni, the latest area threatened in the country’s second-worst fire season on record.

“I’ve lived in Port Alberni since 1956, and this is one of the biggest fires we’ve ever seen,” Russ Wetas, 69, told AFP as smoke from Mount Underwood filled the sky behind him.

The wildfire service in the west coast province of British Columbia has listed the Mount Underwood fire as “out of control,” meaning it is expected to spread further.

But it remained unclear if Port Alberni, roughly 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) north, will be evacuated.

On the opposite end of the vast country, in the easternmost province of Newfoundland and Labrador, parts of the capital, St. John’s, received evacuation orders on Tuesday, following several days of intensifying fire.

A wildfire was also burning on Wednesday on the outskirts of Halifax, a major city in the eastern province of Nova Scotia, with a population of nearly half a million.

This is already Canada’s second-worst wildfire season in terms of landmass burned, based on figures dating back to 1983.

So far, 7.4 million hectares (18.3 million acres) have been scorched, an area nearly as large as Panama, putting 2025 past the 7.1 million hectare mark from 1995.

But this year is not expected to pass 2023, when 17.3 million hectares burned, an extraordinary toll that focused global attention on the growing threat of wildfires boosted by human-induced climate change.

Smoke from this year’s wildfires has put tens of millions of people under air quality alerts in both Canada and the United States. The haze has even crossed the Atlantic, affecting people in western Europe.

More than 700 wildfires were burning across Canada on Wednesday, including 161 considered out of control, with nearly every province and territory impacted.

Mount Underwood is on Vancouver Island, making the blaze there part of a worrying trend of increased wildfire activity near the coast.

Experts have said that historically, coastal areas did not burn, but more serious wildfires near the ocean are being recorded, even if they remain less intense than blazes further inland.

“This is a fire that hasn’t been seen on Vancouver Island,” John Jack, a First Nations chief and regional official, told the public broadcaster CBC.

Ted Hagard, who works at Port Alberni’s paper mill, told AFP he had been watching the fire’s progression on social media but needed to see it for himself.

It’s “insane how huge it is,” the 46-year-old said, standing on the shores of a lake adjacent to Mount Underwood.

Canada is experiencing a rise in conditions that are conducive to fires, experts say, linking the trend to climate change, which has caused elevated temperatures, reduced snow, shorter and milder winters, and earlier summer weather.

Headline

Zelensky Rules Out Swapping Territory, Calls For ‘Fair Peace’

Published

11 hours ago

August 13, 2025

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President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Ukraine and its allies must work together to pressure Russia into ending its invasion, ahead of talks in Berlin with European leaders and US President Donald Trump.

“Pressure must be exerted on Russia for the sake of a fair peace. We must learn from the experience of Ukraine and our partners to prevent deception on the part of Russia,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

“There are currently no signs that the Russians are preparing to end the war,” he added.

Zelensky is due in Berlin on Wednesday for talks with European leaders and Trump ahead of the US president’s summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The Ukrainian leader said he and his team had held more than 30 conversations with world leaders and high-ranking officials ahead of the talks.

The flurry of diplomatic engagements have been overshadowed by rapid, but so far limited Russian push in the eastern Donetsk region, which the Kremlin claims is part of Russia.

A member of the Ukrainian delegation travelling with Zelensky to Berlin told AFP that the Russian gains around the mining hub of Dobropillia “did not influence” preparation for Wednesday’s talks.

Zelensky conceded one day earlier that Russian forces had advanced by up to 10 kilometres (six miles), but ruled out swapping territory with Moscow as part of any deal with Russia.

AFP

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S’Africa Offers US New Trade Deal To Avoid 30% Tariff

Published

1 day ago

August 12, 2025

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South Africa will offer a “generous” new trade deal to the United States to avoid 30 percent tariffs, ministers said Tuesday.

Washington on Friday slapped the huge tariff on some South African exports, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa, despite efforts by Pretoria to negotiate a better arrangement to avoid massive job losses.

The ministers did not release details of the new offer but said previously discussed measures to increase imports of US poultry, blueberries, and pork had been finalised.

“When the document is eventually made public, I think you would see it as a very broad, generous and ambitious offer to the United States on trade,” Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen said at a press briefing.

Officials have said the 30 per cent tariff could cost the economy around 30,000 jobs.

“Our goal is to demonstrate that South African exports do not pose a threat to US industries and that our trade relationship is, in fact, complementary,” Trade Minister Parks Tau said.

The United States is South Africa’s third-largest trading partner after the European Union and China.

However, South African exports account for only 0.25 per cent of total US imports and are “therefore not a threat to US production”, Tau said.

Steenhuisen said US diplomats raised issues related to South African domestic policies, which was a “surprise given the fact we thought we were in a trade negotiation”.

The two nations are at odds over a range of policies.

US President Donald Trump has criticised land and employment laws meant to redress racial inequalities that linger 30 years after the end of apartheid.

“Things like expropriation without compensation, things like some of the race laws in the country, are issues that they regard as barriers now to doing trade with South Africa,” he told AFP on the sidelines of the briefing.

“I think we’re seeing some form of a new era now where trade and tariffs are being used to deal with other issues, outside of what would generally be trade concerns,” Steenhuisen said.