Afghanistan, Pakistan and Myanmar among global hunger hotspots: UN

Three of India’s neighbours — Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Myanmar — are among the hunger hotspots in the world, according to two UN agencies.
 

The report — Hunger Hotspots FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity (June to November 2023 outlook) —  warned of rising food emergencies, including starvation in Sudan due to the outbreak of war and in Haiti, Burkina Faso, and Mali due to restricted movements of people and goods.
 

The four countries join Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen at the highest alert levels, with communities that are already facing or projected to face starvation or otherwise risk a slide “towards catastrophic conditions.”
 

 

Beyond the nine countries rating the highest level of concern, the agencies said 22 countries are identified as “hotspots” risking acute food insecurity.
 

“The Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Pakistan, and the Syrian Arab Republic are hotspots of very high concern, and the alert is also extended to Myanmar in this edition,” said the report by the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation.
 

About Pakistan, the report said a likely worsening of the economic and political crises could further reduce households’ purchasing power and ability to afford food and essential goods in Pakistan, “where 6 per cent of the rural population across the 43 districts analysed are assessed to be in Emergency between April and October 2023.”
 

In Myanmar's context, it said: “The intensity of the conflict and ongoing, high numbers of displacement amid extreme constraints to humanitarian access – which are likely to further deteriorate in the outlook period – raise very high concerns over the potential level of people facing critical levels of acute food insecurity". It further said 2.2 million children and women are in need of nutrition assistance in 2023.