While this article closes the Focus, it also presents the views of one humanitarian actor, complementing the analyses of the preceding researchers and aimed at an audience that is perhaps less well informed. Putting the intersecting causes of food insecurity into perspective, the author argues for the fight to become global and political. In short, he calls for the energies of the NGOs themselves and their supporters to be brought together to help convey the words of researchers and hope to influence the dangerous thinking of political leaders and agri-food giants.
The causes of hunger and food insecurity are many and widely recognised, but they do not operate independently. Either connected at the source or in response to one another, all the causes of hunger feed on one another, creating a vicious circle that only radical and concerted political action can hope to break.
The main causes of hunger
The effects of the climate and environmental crisis are having a devastating impact on people’s ability to eat healthily and sustainably. Gradually damaging our ecosystems and altering regional climates or causing violent and extraordinary events, these changes severely affect water resources, reduce arable land and destroy livelihoods. This in turn exacerbates water-borne disease and impairs mental health, with repercussions on the private lives of families as well as on how children are raised. Overall, these effects seriously threaten people’s food and nutrition security. The challenges linked to the issue of combatting global warming can be summarised by two concepts: mitigation and adaptation. The first consists of reducing our impact on biodiversity by making a shift to more environmentally friendly modes of consumption. Adaptation refers to the fact that the results of global warming are already being felt strongly with consequently, in addition to the outcomes already mentioned, an escalation and intensification of conflicts linked to the control of resources such as land, triggering mass displacements and therefore depriving millions of people of their means of subsistence.[1]United Nations, The Climate Crisis – A Race We Can Win, 2020, https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2020/01/un75_climate_crisis.pdf
“Our industrialised and globalised food systems, reliant on agribusiness, are responsible for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Acting to mitigate and adapt to the effects of global warming is crucial if food and nutrition security is to be ensured. For this, transforming food systems is a useful starting point. In effect, our industrialised and globalised food systems, reliant on agribusiness, are responsible for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. They therefore contribute significantly to environmental damage and put enormous pressure on natural resources. These systems are increasingly showing their limitations, both for the environment and biodiversity and in terms of their viability when it comes to feeding the whole population in a healthy and affordable way. To make our food systems more sustainable and ensure populations and ecosystems can be more resilient, agroecology provides solutions suited to local contexts.[2]See the article by Caroline Broudic, “Agroecology and the challenges of food production”, in this issue p. 54. We should point out that in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region chronically prone to food crises, small farms account for approximately 80% of all agricultural holdings and directly employ about 175 million people, or about one adult in three.[3]OECD and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2016-2025, July 2016.
As for the escalating number of increasingly deadlocked conflicts, they rule out any prospect of development and particularly affect people and their ability to feed themselves. When a large-scale conflict breaks out, agricultural infrastructure may be destroyed and food markets disrupted. Forced displacement deprives communities of key services and puts distance between them.[4]Angelika Rettberg, « Les conséquences des conflits armés sur la paix et le développement durables en Amérique latine », Chronique ONU, vol. 52, n° 4, p. 26-28, … Continue reading In 2023, the United Nations (UN) Security Council adopted a declaration strongly condemning both the use of starvation as a method of warfare and the denial of humanitarian access, referring back to founding resolution 2417 (2018). It underlines the link between armed conflict, violence and food insecurity, noting that conflicts contributed to acute food insecurity affecting 117 million people in nineteen countries in 2022. International humanitarian law protects food resources which are vital for preventing the spread of disease or deficiencies that can lead to undernutrition. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states that “intentionally using starvation of civilians […] by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies” constitutes a war crime.
Against the background of escalating crises, the gulf is being widened in our societies between the haves and the have-nots as a result of policies encouraging the monopolising of wealth by a small number of individuals. And yet we observe a drastic collapse in the welfare state, resulting in the deterioration of essential public services and a dramatic increase in socio-economic inequalities,[5]United Nations, Inequality – Bridging the Divide, 2020, https://www.un.org/en/un75/inequality-bridging-divide which inevitably reduces the access the most disadvantaged populations have to an adequate supply of healthy food at affordable prices. The “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World”[6]FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023. Urbanization, agrifood systems transformation and healthy diets across the rural–urban continuum, FAO, … Continue reading report reveals that the cost of a healthy diet (US$1.90 a day) is well above the international poverty line. It emphasises that a balanced diet, even the least expensive, costs five times as much as one that meets nutritional needs with starch-based foods alone.
In these circumstances, social protection, which aims to prevent and reduce poverty by providing income security and access to healthcare, housing, education, water and food, is vital. According to the International Labour Organisation, social protection is a human right and is universal. Despite their undeniably positive impact on nutritional security, before the Covid-19 pandemic, only 45% of the world population was in receipt of social protection benefits, leaving 55% or 4 billion people without protection. The effects of the pandemic have undoubtedly widened the gap. Yet during the last two decades, international financial institutions, led by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have helped cripple social protection by encouraging policies of austerity, in other words, reducing government expenditure, for “fiscal rebalancing” purposes, or by granting loans that are impossible to repay. The worsening of the social and economic climate has widely favoured the establishment of “night-watchman states”, neglecting human rights[7]Bhumika Muchhala, “The Urgency of fiscal justice: Another wave of austerity threatens the right to development for the South”, Third World Network, 19 October 2020, … Continue reading and ultimately just as costly because of their negative impacts on the population.
“Gender inequalities are both a cause and a consequence of hunger, creating a vicious circle in which women are the first to be affected.”
Alongside socio-economic inequalities, gender inequalities are both a cause and a consequence of hunger, creating a vicious circle in which women are the first to be affected. The fifth goal of sustainable development mentions that “equality between the sexes is not only a fundamental human right, [but] also a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world”. It is worth reminding ourselves here of some alarming statistics: in the regions hardest hit by hunger and nutrition insecurity, women, often the ones responsible for feeding their households and children, face discrimination hindering their access to land rights and to food; they represent on average fewer than 20% of land owners worldwide, but make up about 43% of the agricultural workforce.[8]United Nations, Human rights, Insecure land rights for women: a threat to progress on gender equality and sustainable development, Working group on discrimination against women and girls, … Continue reading Without secure land rights, women are vulnerable to eviction, to domestic violence and to exclusion from decisions concerning their land. In addition to the law in force, in many regions of the world customary law, dominated by patriarchal norms, plays an important role and restricts even further women’s access to land. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that if women enjoyed the same access to productive resources as men, the number of people suffering from hunger in the world would fall by approximately 12-17%.[9]FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture. Women in Agriculture. Closing the Gender Gap for Development, 2010-2011, https://www.fao.org/3/i2050f/i2082f00.pdf This situation has a direct impact on the health and development of women and their children. Without a healthy diet during pregnancy and the first thousand days of a child’s life, the immune system is weakened, and cognitive development is severely impaired. The consequences are irreversible and jeopardise children’s survival, growth and learning, as well as their future ability to support themselves. As a starting point to combat undernutrition in particular and to meet the global nutrition targets of the World Health Organization, minimum social protection levels could, for example, grant a universal basic income for the first thousand days of a child’s life, thus allowing mother and child to access the resources and care necessary during this most critical period in human development.
In 2021, 126 million more women than men suffered food insecurity, compared with 49 million more in 2019. Clearly, the attainment of the “zero hunger” goal is compromised as long as these inequalities continue to exist and limit the key role of women in achieving food and nutrition security.
Ensuring food and nutrition security: a political battle
In 2015, the UN committed to achieving seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The second SDG, “zero hunger”, aims to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”. This commitment, like the sixteen others, must be a compass for the states of the international community. Regrettably, these states, driven by financial interests and hiding behind “national interest”, are moving us on in small, closed groups in the opposite direction, against strong headwinds. This attitude, in the context alluded to earlier, reduces to a utopian pipedream the implementation of the SDGs and our aspiration to live together decently. The goals of the 2030 UN agenda are useful since accomplishing them individually is only possible by attaining them all. The “zero hunger” goal clearly illustrates this insofar as achieving nutrition security for all forces us to turn our attention to the issues of health, the economy, social and gender inequalities, combatting global warming, peacebuilding, diplomacy, governance, and democracy – in its most noble sense, that of governance by the people for the people. Global warming, conflict, economic, social and gender inequalities, shrinking civic space and the prioritising of economic, geopolitical and strategic interests are in fact interrelated problems which have a significant impact on access to and the quality of our social protection, health, food and education systems, intended to guarantee our most fundamental rights.
“Only a radical, collective change in approach, from one of growth through domination to one of development through concertation, will make it possible to achieve the SDGs.”
How can these systems be transformed to fulfil their primary function? It is a major challenge but only a radical, collective change in approach, from one of growth through domination to one of development through concertation, will make it possible to achieve the SDGs. This will inevitably involve a transfer of power to civil society. To stay the course, compass in hand, there is an urgent need to create inclusive, democratic spaces for dialogue with human rights and dignity at the very centre of our concerns. These forums must be well designed and standardised on the one hand, to give a special place round the negotiating table to the men and women who are most severely affected and, on the other hand, to find solutions which take account of all the challenges facing us. Indeed, the forums for discussion we set up lose sight of the general good if only influential stakeholders from the political and economic spheres are invited to the table with inclusiveness and funding as the main arguments. They are arenas of influence in which the players with the most power and financial resources are the driving forces. “Multi-stakeholder” summits, which legitimise themselves by including civil society as a token gesture, tend ultimately to stifle the concerns of the latter as a result of the imbalance of power. Yet civil society worldwide, represented by a variety of stakeholders such as non-governmental organisations, lawyers, researchers, students, trade unions and campaigners, works every day to promote, protect and further human rights. Its common goal is the search for justice, equality and respect for human dignity. In spite of a growing awareness of the fundamental importance of the knowledge and experience of “local civil society” organisations in developing appropriate and sustainable responses and their vital role in defending the rights of citizens throughout the world, they cannot be transformative without the creation of bodies in which they have real coercive power. It is for this reason that it is absolutely essential to maintain and foster the existence of a dynamic, varied and independent civil society, with resources enabling it to continue its action of promoting human rights. Hunger in the world and access to a sustainable and healthy food supply allowing everyone to live in good health is a problem for which the only solution lies in the respect and enforcement of human rights. Humanity has undoubtedly the means, whether cognitive, scientific, technological or technical, to achieve this. Civil society is there to remind us of this. Guaranteeing food and nutrition security for all, women and men, is a political struggle.
Translated from the French by Fay Guerry
