If we are serious about solving a huge problem, such as global hunger, the first steps are to grasp the nature of the challenge, understand it cannot be met alone, and work with partners on a clear action plan.
So, it is encouraging that the Foreign Secretary describes his approach to foreign and development policy as progressive realism and partnership.
Certainly, a strong dose of realism is crucial to address a challenge as geopolitically important as hunger. A challenge that epitomises extreme poverty and suffering, yet presents an opportunity to advance gender equality, climate resilience, peace, and prosperity – if only it were solved.
Just imagine. A real opportunity to deliver the new Government’s international development mission to create a world free of poverty on a liveable planet.
It is within reach.
Malnutrition is entirely treatable and preventable, and remarkable success in reducing it was made in previous decades. But improvement has faltered. Conflict, inflation, climate change, and stagnating aid budgets have caused global food insecurity and malnutrition to spiral upwards, which has hit fragile communities hardest.
The statistics should make us all sit up and listen. According to the latest UN FAO State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report (SOFI), a staggering 733 million people experienced hunger in 2023. Equivalent to one in eleven people hungry worldwide, which rises to one in five in Africa.
Unfathomably, this hyperbole-defying tragedy receives less than one percent of global Official Development Assistance (ODA, also known as foreign aid).
No wonder the misery of hunger persists, undermining prospects for development and destabilising the globe. From Sudan to Gaza, and many places in between, the vicious cycle of conflict and hunger is bringing misery to millions. Malnutrition, passed from mother to child, is the biggest killer of children worldwide and affects women and girls most severely because they typically eat least and last.
It should not be this way. There is now an opportunity for the Government to do as it says and modernise UK international development for the current reality. Prioritising nutrition would enhance our reputation on the world stage by driving progress on shared values - the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It would, as the Minister for International Development is determined to do, unlock opportunities for everyone and empower women and girls.
The SDGs were established in 2015, by the United Nations to create a better world and better life for all by 2030. But with five years to go SDG 2: Zero Hunger is way off track – despite food being foundational to survival and the building block for health on which all individuals and societies depend.
As humans, we know that food, like clean water, is a priority. It is not an option or afterthought. Malnourishment frequently results in death and leaves survivors with life-long disadvantages due to damaged body and brain growth. It makes poor health inevitable, education less effective, gender equality impossible, prosperity less likely, and peace way out of reach.
The reality is that progress on development can only begin when hunger ends.
Constrained budgets to confront it are a concurrent reality, suggesting Zero Hunger can only be delivered through partnerships. This fits the Government’s preferred international development approach, which it says will be genuine partnerships with the Global South, supporting shared interests like tackling global poverty, instability, and the climate and nature crisis.
Modern thinking suggests these international alliances between governments, businesses, and civil society, are most likely to succeed if each partner is assigned a role to unlock the influence, expertise, finance, and networks necessary to deliver change on the ground. Partnerships focussed on saving lives immediately and improving food security long-term in our climate emergency world.
Here at United Against Malnutrition and Hunger, an alliance of leaders from scientific, business, finance, military, diplomatic, faith, philanthropic, and civil society, we embrace partnerships. Our unifying focus is a future in which no child dies of malnutrition because it is the morally right thing to do and will deliver a more just and secure future for all.
It cannot come soon enough.
As Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General compellingly put it launching last week’s SOFI report: “Hunger has no place in the twenty-first century. Let us consign hunger to the history books.”
This article is written by Emma Fabian, Head of Campaigns and Communications, UAMH
