The number of people facing chronic hunger in Africa grew from 200 to 224 million between 2015 and 2016, and an official with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is pointing to climate change and conflicts as key culprits in the crisis.
The global estimate from a 2017 FAO report was 815 million undernourished, up from 777 million in 2015.
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“This very strongly is related to climate change,” FAO’s assistant director general for Africa, Bukar Tijani, told Agence France-Presse, following a presentation at a conference in Sudan. “We had floods, we had droughts, and we had crop failures.”
And he noted that food insecurity in Somalia, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic was made worse by armed conflict. “When you look at those conflicts, it has also brought challenges. Because even when food is available, it is not affordable and it cannot reach those conflict areas.”
Citing earlier commentary on the FAO report by Leah Samberg, a postdoctoral research associate with the Global Landscapes Initiative, EcoWatch correspondent Lorraine Chow notes that a vicious feedback loop has been spooling up over the last decade. “Conflict-torn communities are more vulnerable to climate-related disasters,” she writes, “and crop or livestock failure due to climate can contribute to social unrest.”
