13/10/2022 | Global Food Crisis: The Price of Hunger

According to the WFP, as many as 828 million people suffer from hunger in 2022, the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared - from 135 million to 345 million - since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine. This situation has been caused by a combination of several factors (conflict, climate shocks, Covid-19… with the Ukraine conflict as tipping point), and didn’t come unexpected.
There are many indications, that looming famine and food insecurity for an increasing number of people is long from being over soon. It could become worse in 2023 when food becomes unaffordable for even more people. But is it a global food shortage, or more a “price or market crisis, including pricing of food, access and distribution. The future perfect storm is looming, with climate change effects deteriorating more quickly, food could become unavailable at a higher rate.
Women are harder hit by above mentioned shocks than men, and more likely to suffer from poverty and food insecurity. To bring in a feminist perspective, all of these factors have structural causes and responsible actors, acting in a patriarchal and neoliberal model of the current capitalistic market. How can a feminist perspective help humanitarian actors besides fighting the effects also meaningfully contribute to tackle these structural causes within their scope of work, without becoming activist movements?
Host:
Shemeles G. Haile | Country Representative Ethiopia Médecins du Monde (MdM)
Speaker:
Farida Akhter | Founding Executive Director of UBINIG, Dhaka, a Policy and Research Organization in Bangladesh
Marc Cohen | Senior Researcher for Aid Effectiveness at Oxfam America
Dr. Jessica Fanzo | Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food & Agricultural Policy and Ethics
Prof Dr. Ruth Philipps | Associate Professor in the Social Work and Policy Studies Program, University of Sydney