Rising undernourishment

The ‘Global Food Policy Report (GBPR) 2023: Rethinking Food Crisis Responses', confirms the general notion that the combined adverse impacts of the pandemic, climatic turmoil and war in Ukraine have forced more people to go hungry and suffer undernourishment across the globe. Launched regionally in Kathmandu, Nepal on Monday last, the report reveals that the number of the undernourished people in the world has risen from 572 million in 2014 to 768 million by 2021, a 34.2 per cent increase over seven years. Another report on the state of global food security and nutrition prepared by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 2021 corroborates the disconcerting food situation. It observes that the world was failing to ensure access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food for all people round the year and to eradicate all forms of malnutrition. Ensuring safe, sufficient and nutritious food for all is one of the main targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Eradication of malnutrition is yet another vital SDG target.

Now particularly worrying is the fact that even before the pandemic, progress in elimination of hunger and improvement in undernourishment had stagnated for a few years. The prevalence of undernourishment remained more or less unchanged from 2014 to 2019 but it jumped to 9.9 per cent in 2020 from 8.4 per cent in 2019. That it was triggered by the pandemic is understood. But the steady progress in reducing both hunger and undernourishment for decades started stagnating a decade ago. Now there is a reverse journey with more people joining the hungry and the undernourished. The long shadow of Covid-19 would have by now been a thing of the past but on its heel came the energy shock which was soon followed by the Ukraine war. Add to this the weather extremes, and the picture of woes and adversity completes.

The energy price has dropped but the war in Europe is going on and smaller and resource-poor countries' travails show no sign of coming to an end because they cannot foot the energy bill and economies are on a tailspin. Bangladesh is also bearing the brunt. Although, the country has not as yet suffered a major calamity this year apart from the extreme heat waves, the threat is always there. Right now, north-eastern region of the country faces the threat of floods. According to the GFPR, South Asia is the most vulnerable region to climate and other changes. Food production has been quite satisfactory for Bangladesh but other economic challenges are proving daunting. Even sufficient food stock is no guarantee for ensuring safe, sufficient and nutritious food for all of its citizens because of widening socio-economic disparities.

The rise in child mortality, as reported by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) recently, is also a consequence of undernourishment of people at the low-income strata of society. When people stand in a queue for hours together to purchase government-subsidised commodities from TCB (Trading Corporation of Bangladesh), their desperation to stay put can be realised. But those commodities alone are not enough for leading a healthy life. Also, those are not enough for their need all the time. But they cannot afford nutritious food items from the open market. This explains the rising undernourishment of poor and marginal people whose number is also on the rise.