DUSHANBE, October 8, 2010, Asia-Plus — Twenty-two countries are facing enormous challenges like repeated food crises and an extremely high prevalence of hunger due to a combination of natural disasters, conflict, and weak institutions. These countries are in what is termed a protracted crisis, FAO said in its “State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010” hunger report, jointly published on October 6 with the World Food Programme (WFP).
Tajikistan along with Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Cote d”Ivoire, Democratic People”s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe was listed among the countries being in protracted crisis.
The report notes that chronic hunger and food insecurity are the most common characteristics of a protracted crisis. On average, the proportion of people who are undernourished in countries facing these complex problems is almost three times as high as in other developing countries.
More than 166 million undernourished people live in countries in protracted crises, roughly 20 percent of the world’s undernourished people, or more than a third of the total if large countries like China and India are excluded from the calculation.
Earlier this month, FAO revealed that 925 million people in the world live in chronic hunger, down 98 million from 1.020 billion in 2009. The decline was primarily attributable to better economic prospects in 2010 and the fall in food prices since mid-2008.
For the first time, FAO and WFP offer a clear definition of a protracted crisis that will help improve aid interventions. Countries considered as being in a protracted crisis are those reporting a food crisis for eight years or more, receive more than 10 percent of foreign assistance as humanitarian relief, and be on the list of Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries.
Globally, around 10 percent of total Official Development Assistance (ODA) is in the form of humanitarian assistance, while in protracted crisis countries, the share is much higher. At the global level these countries receive close to 60 percent of the total humanitarian assistance.
FAO and WFP called for a significant rethinking of how assistance is delivered to countries in protracted crises. Official assistance needs to refocus attention on longer-term solutions by aiming to achieve sustained improvements in the productive capacity of vulnerable countries and strengthening their resilience to shocks, whilst continuing to support life saving and livelihoods protection activities.
Nearly two-thirds of countries in protracted crises receive less development assistance per person than the average for least-developed countries. More importantly, agriculture receives just three to four percent of development and humanitarian assistance funds even though it accounts for around a third of their gross domestic product and is the main source of food and income for nearly two thirds of their population.
