Climate Crisis driving hunger warns WFP on Would Food Day

“The climate crisis has the potential to overwhelm humanity. The world is not prepared for the unprecedented rise in hunger we will see if we do not invest in programs that help vulnerable communities adapt and build resilience to our changing climate,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. “The climate crisis is fuelling a food crisis.”

Vulnerable communities, a vast majority of whom rely on agriculture, fishing, and livestock, who contribute the least to the climate crisis bear the brunt of the impacts with limited means to cushion the blow.

In the last six years, the SADC region has seen some of the worst droughts (southern Zambia, southern Madagascar, southern Angola), storms (Idai, Kenneth, Eloise), floods and uncontrolled swarms of locusts destroying crops. Climate change is the biggest long-term threat in the southern African region with implications across the food system.

Without adaptation, by 2050 approximately 30 percent of the entire SADC region will be exposed to a variety of climate hazards and their combinations, with significant impact predicted for the GDP of many countries.  Shifting biomes and reduced suitability of maize as well as agro-pastoral areas could affect approximately 44 million rural people, 35 percent of the current cultivated area, and risk US$ 18 billion in production value.

Limited access to adaptive technology, volatile markets, and little to no access to social protection, means that smallholder farmers are vulnerable.

“In southern Africa, climate change is hitting the most vulnerable people the hardest and reversing development gains,” said WFP Regional Director for southern Africa, Menghestab Haile. “Climate change acts as a risk multiplier for development, making the root causes of existing challenges such as hunger, malnutrition, resource scarcity much worse and to avert an even greater humanitarian emergency, it is critical that action is taken now to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and to reduce the risk of disasters in the period ahead.”

WFP is helping communities adapt to the changing climate that threatens their ability to grow food, secure incomes and withstand shocks. In southern Africa, WFP implements integrated climate risk management programmes in five countries by integrating disaster risk reduction, microinsurance, savings and credit activities. WFP also assists countries in building systems to support forecast based action to pre-empt climate induced shocks.  

Building on this year’s theme for World Food Day, “Our actions are our future- Better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life,” WFP is calling on world leaders to recognise the close link between hunger and the climate crisis and is urging them to redouble their efforts to address the changing climate as focus shifts to the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26). 

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies, building prosperity and supporting a sustainable future for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

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