Countries Urged to Anticipate Food Crises before They Strike

Rome: Advances in technology and data now allow us to predict and anticipate many disasters before they strike - but use of these tools must be massively scaled up against the growing threats to rural livelihoods and food security, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) has urged.
 
"We cannot continue to rely on the same strategies we used yesterday - we have to innovate and invest more smartly and efficiently," FAO Director of Emergencies and Resilience , Rein Paulsen, said in remarks at a High-level Humanitarian Event on Anticipatory Action on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York today.
 
The number of people trapped in food crises has continued to climb over the past 5 years, reaching 155 million people in 55 countries in 2020. 

Currently, over 41 million people are facing emergency levels of food insecurity and are at risk of falling into famine or famine-like conditions unless they receive immediate life-saving assistance.
 
Yet while humanitarian funding to the food sector grew from USD 6.2 billion to nearly USD 8 billion between 2016 and 2019, a significant shortfall persists, Paulsen noted - this despite ample evidence that anticipatory action to help vulnerable rural communities build their resilience before disasters hit is far more cost-effective than responding with aid after the fact.
 
"Better technology and data means we now have the tools to better understand - and predict - crises and their impact," said Paulsen. 
 
"FAO has been doubling down on anticipatory action" and "putting our money where our values are," he added.
 
He noted that with support from resource partners FAO invested USD 250 million in anticipatory action in 2020-21. 
 
This included acting early to contain a massive upsurge of crop- and pasture- eating desert locusts in East Africa via a control campaign that safeguarded the food security of 40 million people and avoided nearly USD 2 billion in losses.
 
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