UN Warns of Food Insecurity Due to Polycrisis Conflict to Climate Change in the Arab Region

Export of seeds from Ukraine via the Black Sea. (Wikimedia Commons/International Maritime Organization)

JAKARTA - A UN official in charge of the Arab region said on Tuesday, millions of people in the region face food insecurity during the polycrisis of conflict, climate change, and economic turmoil.

Rola Dashti, a Kuwaiti economist and executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia said Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal threatened to make matters worse.

He told the UN food meeting in Rome that the "apparent global decline" in nutrition since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic jeopardized the "hard-earned progress" of recent decades.

Dashti echoes the call of the Cop28 presidency for the transformation of the food system under the shadow of “interlinked crises” which, while “strong alone, become more devastating in combination”.

In Yemen, 17 million people suffer from acute food insecurity due to "prolonged violent conflict and economic hardship", he said.

He described Somalia and Ethiopia as countries on the verge of famine and "stricken by severe drought and political instability".

"And in Sudan, against a backdrop of violence and dire inflation, the devastating effects of flooding have left 19 million people grappling with food insecurity," he explained, quoted by The National News July 26.

"Recent actions such as the Russian Federation's termination of the Black Sea grain deal threaten to push up global wheat and bread prices further, push millions more into food insecurity, and jeopardize food aid to vulnerable countries such as Yemen and Somalia. ," he explained.

"The hard-won progress of the last decades in human development and food security is now under threat. We must act to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry or suffers from malnutrition," he said.

Separately, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday Russia's decision to withdraw safety guarantees from Black Sea cargo ships had led to a rise in food prices.

It is known that Russia and Ukraine are among the world's producers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other agricultural products. Meanwhile, Lebanon and Somalia are some of the countries that usually depend on Ukrainian exports.

Meanwhile, Karima Ahmed Al-Hada'a, who represents the nutrition movement in Yemen, said the country is seeing food being wasted even though it is in a "very challenging context" for the country.

"Promoting a healthy diet is very important even in such a context, and nutrition and education are still very important for children," he said.