According to a United Nations report released last month, just under one-tenth of the global population was undernourished in 2020, up from 8.4 percent in 2019. Much of that spike was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has severely strained global food systems that were already under pressure due to climate change, population growth, conflict and migration. On the Trend Lines podcast this week, Julie Howard, a senior adviser to the global food security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, joined WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the U.N. report’s findings. Listen to the full conversation here: If you like [...]
Editor’s Note: You can find all of our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here. If you would like to help support our work, please consider taking advantage of our subscription offer here. Late last month, as the coronavirus continued to spread across the globe, the World Food Program warned of a “hunger pandemic.” With lockdowns constraining the incomes of the poor and supply chain disruptions preventing food from reaching consumers, pandemic-related hunger and malnutrition could eventually take more lives than the disease itself. Understanding the geography of the pandemic and the vulnerability of different food systems is critical for a [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Zimbabwe was facing a food security crisis even before the coronavirus pandemic began, but a lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19 has exacerbated the country’s economic woes and further restricted the food supply. Now more than half the country’s 15 million people are in need of food assistance. The World Food Program was already assisting 3.5 million Zimbabweans before the coronavirus struck. Cyclical periods of drought and flooding have interrupted domestic food production, while hyperinflation, fueled by the government’s reintroduction of [...]
