Compounding Crisis Events - the 4 C's of Famine
As leaders of organisations, companies, or countries, we once dealt with the occasional crisis, often reacting to the event in the moment and throwing all our energy into resolving the impacts. In today’s environment we are dealing with multiple crises that are complex in nature and drawn out in time, requiring pre-event preparedness rather than post event response.
Last year marked the 10th anniversary of the UN-run Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan. In 2015, I had the opportunity to visit the camp and talk to the UN agencies about their daily lives and challenges.
Born out of a conflict crisis, the UNHCR and Jordan government established Al Za’atri,the largest refugee camp in the Middle East and home to 80,000 Syrian people. Ten years on they face even more challenges, with supporting agencies struggling to managing the ever increasing poverty within the camp and they are not alone.
The year 2022 marked the greatest increase in world hunger and famine in modern history with the World Food Programme (WFP)1 describing the evolving global food crisis as unprecedented in its proportions.
The unfolding global food crisis is an unfortunate example of a perfect storm caused by the combination of the four ‘C’s; Conflict, Climate, COVID-19, and Costs. Each one a crisis in itself, each one challenging in its own right, and each one resulting in a combination of impacts that will affect all of us along the way. We need to understand how these crises evolve and we need to get better at forecasting their intercept.
Today’s crises are complex because they are the result of interdisciplinary themes with intersecting impacts. The unfolding global food crisis is an unfortunate example of this perfect storm caused by the combination of the four‘ C’s; Conflict, Climate, COVID-19, and Costs.
The year 2022 marked the greatest increase inworld hunger and famine in modern history with the World Food Programme2 describing the evolving global food crisis as unprecedented in its proportions. Food insecurity for people has soared from 135 million to 345 million since 2019 with a total of 49 countries on the edge of declared famine.
Conflict:
The greatest driver of hunger is conflict, with60% of those living in hunger or famine living in areas of conflict. Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen, South Sudan, Northern Nigeria, Suria, Malawi, Afghanistan amongst the greatest impacted by conflict. In addition, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has not only created another humanitarian crisis but has also impacted the production and distribution of several essential foodstuffs such as, seed oils, corn, and wheat, together with the reduction in available fertilizer products, all primary exports. Civil conflict in these impacted countries creates social and economic divides and hampers efforts to provide essential support and humanitarian aid.
Climate:
Extreme weather again dominated in 2022 with each region of the global experiencing significant and devastating climatic events. Severe drought in parts of Europe, Italy experiencing the worst in 70years, threatening supplies of olive oil and rice, piggeries, and cattle. Likewise, France and parts of England, Portugal, and Romania in drought with severe impacts to crops of cereal and corn and further afield, 43 % of US states experiencing drought. The World Economic Forum3, reported, drought frequency and duration has increased by nearly a third globally since 2000, with 2.2 billion people facing water stress.
On the other hand, La Nina has driven many countries into flood, Nigeria, Thailand, Vietnam, and Australia facing the largest rainfalls, wiping out crops and livestock, with flood waters permanently changing landscapes. These natural disasters are driven by climatic changes that have seen two ‘once in century’ floods hit Australia within 12 months.
COVID-19:
The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) declared the threat of covid infection and rising famine as a crisis within a crisis. The pandemic has directly caused economic downturn, job insecurity and job losses that have damaged livelihoods, affecting people’s ability to afford food. Infection control requirements have indirectly increased the probability of famine due to lockdowns; travel bans and governmental restrictions impacting accessibility of humanitarian aid.4
The pandemic has seen significant pressure on health systems, vaccine production and distribution. Countries have needed to provide health and infrastructure resources to battle the pandemic above and beyond expectations and for longer than ever anticipated, as variants and subvariants continue to emerge.
Costs:
Conflict, COVID and Climate all link to increased Costs. Reduced harvests due to natural disasters, increased oil prices and inflation, and country restrictions on exporting selected commodities, has created a scenario where the costs of basic food, cereals, grains, fresh produce, and meat have soared. Increased transport, storage and distribution costs have also risen, domestically and internationally. This means that countries and communities will pay more for everyday food items or require alternatives to current suppliers.
For humanitarian efforts the economic impacts are huge, with WFP’s operating costs (US$73.6 million), 44% higher than the2019 average, now with even more countries requesting emergency assistance.
So, this year we need to acknowledge that many countries, organisations, and businesses are still trying to absorb the shockwaves of complex and coinciding crises. Floods, inflation and ongoing COVID challenges have changed our economic, social, and physical environments. Different elements of different crises have come together to form the perfect storm.
Famine is devastating and this unprecedented famine is set to expand with global impacts for years to come. We encourage all organisations to raise awareness locally to this escalating crisis and support recognised global bodies like the World Food Programme, UNICEF, UNHCR and Oxfam, in their efforts to provide food to the hungry.
Edited January 2023
1. https://www.wfp.org/global-hunger-crisis
2. https://www.wfp.org/global-hunger-crisis
3. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/drought-water-climate-un/
4. https://www.visionofhumanity.org/crisis-within-a-crisis-food-insecurity-and-the-pandemic/