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The goal I decided to choose was Zero Hunger. I chose this goal because I have always been curious about why and how so many families end up hungry. Once I started the research and slowly unwrapped the many reasons why people go hungry I realized that there are many reasons we overlook and many of those reasons heavily affect hungry families. https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal2

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Goal 2 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs

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End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

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The causes of hunger can be various of things but the main causes are conflict, poverty, extreme weather, and diseases

https://www.wfpusa.org/hunger/issues/

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6 Causes of World Hunger - Why There is Global Food Insecurity

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Extreme hunger & famine is caused by 6 major factors: conflict, climate change, gender inequality, food waste, poverty, and Covid-19.

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Conflict is the main reason for hunger around the world. It destroys the economy, ruins infrastructure and stops agricultural production. Food shortages can lead to social unrest and renewed violence creating a cycle where conflict causes hunger and hunger leads to more conflict.

https://www.wfp.org/conflict-and-hunger

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Nobel Peace Prize 2020 - Food assistance as a step to peace and stability | World Food Programme

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With almost 60 percent of the world’s 811 million hungry people living in areas affected by armed violence, conflict is the single greatest challenge to achieving zero hunger. Assistance provided by the World Food Programme (WFP) is not just a life-saver for people trapped in conflict, living under

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Poverty causes hunger by limiting people's income. Poor people cannot afford essential tools, education, healthcare and proper sanitation which also doesn't allow them to secure food and improve their long term well being. Overall, this creates a cycle where lack of income doesn't allow access to healthy food leading to sickness and making it harder for people to earn a suitable income. It also makes it tremendously harder to escape from poverty.

https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/the-hunger-crisis/the-causes-of-hunger/poverty/

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Poverty Drives Hunger - Donate to Save Lives Today | Action Against Hunger

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Around the world, 648 million people live on less than $2.15 a day and often cannot afford enough food to sustain a healthy life.

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Extreme weather causes hunger by destroying crops and farmland, destroying food supply chains, making food inaccessible. It destroys the quantity of available food which increases hunger. Extreme weather can also damage the transportation infrastructure like roads which delays the distribution of food. Therefore, lower food production can lead to higher food prices which makes food more difficult to purchase for poor families.

https://www.wfpusa.org/hunger/issues/extreme-weather/

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Climate Extremes are Causing Global Hunger

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Extreme weather is one of the top causes of global hunger as it destroys land, livestock and crops.

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Outbreaks often occur in hunger hotspots creating complex health emergencies. Diseases such as hyperthyroidism and Insulinoma constantly cause hunger around the world. When disease strikes, adults are also not able to work which can reduce income needed to purchase food. For example, a study in Kenya found that the death of a male head of household from HIV/AIDS caused a 57% drop in crop production.

https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger

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Learn how millions of people in the United States are coping with food insecurity.

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Famine is the deadliest form of hunger and is a widespread shortage of food leading to starvation and death. We have prevented famines before and with the right amount of help we can all stop it.

https://www.rescue.org/article/what-famine-how-its-caused-and-how-stop-it

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Action Against Hunger, Yemen

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For decades, global hunger was on the decline. But now, due to conflict, climate change, global inequality, and other factors, famine threatens to return.

The Definition of Famine

A famine is defined as the most severe kind of hunger crisis. It is very rare, but when it does occur, it means that there is an extreme shortage of food and several children and adults within a certain area are dying of hunger on a daily basis.

Some deadly emergencies happen suddenly, like earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters. This is not the case with famine. A famine happens slowly, caused by long-term conflict, climate shocks, extreme poverty, and other drivers. Famines are never inevitable - they are always predictable, preventable, and man-made.
Download 10 Facts About Hunger >>

Famine Conditions

Famine is a technical term - it is only officially declared when a series of specific food insecurity, mortality, and malnutrition criteria are met.

How is famine declared?

To declare a famine, the world turns to the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system, a framework involving governments, UN agencies, organizations like Action Against Hunger, civil society, and other relevant partners. Together, using the IPC's scientific standards and analytical approach, partners classify the severity and magnitude of food crises in a country.

The IPC has five phases for hunger crises, ranging from Phase 1 (Minimal/None) to Phase 5 (Catastrophic/Famine), and each has its own set of technical criteria.

The key to understanding food emergencies is data - and a lot of it. Action Against Hunger and our partners carry out food security and nutrition surveys to gather information on food availability, malnutrition levels, and mortality rates.

All of the data is then collected and analyzed, and IPC partners agree on the overall results and conclusions. If a country, or part of a country, meets famine (IPC Phase 5) criteria, then each partner - including the country's government - must reach a consensus on these findings before famine is declared. At times, famine declarations can become political decisions, rather than humanitarian ones.

Before and after a famine is declared, the goal of the IPC system is to trigger action to prevent hunger crises from deteriorating further and to save lives. But, though it is a very helpful tool, the system is far from perfect.

Often, the same conditions that cause hunger are the ones that make it incredibly difficult to gather the data needed to determine if famine is occurring.

KEEP UP WITH THE ACTION

Receive the latest news direct from our lifesaving teams.

If opting in to receive SMS updates, you can expect to receive no more than 3 messages a month. Message and data rates may apply. Text "STOP" at any time to opt out.

Conflict Drives Hunger Crises

Conflict is the top driver of hunger. Violence and insecurity put civilians in danger, while making it unsafe for humanitarians to assess the severity of a food crisis and to reach communities most in need of support. Sadly, this means that there are times when famine is suspected - even likely - but there is not enough information to confirm it.

When was the last famine?

There have been just two famines in the 21st century. In 2011, in the midst of a severe drought and conflict, famine was declared in Somalia after an estimated 250,000 people died. In 2017, after years of civil war, parts of South Sudan were found to be experiencing famine.

For months before both of these famines were declared, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations warned of the deteriorating humanitarian crises. Aid eventually came but, for hundreds of thousands of malnourished children and families, it arrived too slowly.

Is famine still a concern today?

After many years of progress in the global fight against hunger, a combination of factors - conflict, climate change, and global inequality - driven millions of people to the brink of starvation.

According to the United Nations, right now, an all-time high of as many as 49 million people in 46 countries could be at risk of falling into famine if they do not get urgent assistance. The countries at highest risk of famine in 2022 are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen.

While famine hasn't been declared - and it may never be - the warning bells are now ringing, and the world must listen. We cannot wait for an official famine designation to take action to save lives.

How we help communities facing famine

We provide lifesaving treatment to severely malnourished children and delivering emergency cash, food, and clean water. Our teams also help to assess the severity of food crises by surveying communities and supplying and analyzing data.

Our teams also research better ways to understand, prevent, and address hunger crises, advocate for greater humanitarian access to communities in need, and push world leaders to take action to create a world free from hunger.

Donate Now

How we fight hunger

We take decisive action against the causes and effects of hunger.

Previous Photo Next Photo

For decades, global hunger was on the decline. But now, due to conflict, climate change, global inequality, and other factors, famine threatens to return.

The Definition of Famine

A famine is defined as the most severe kind of hunger crisis. It is very rare, but when it does occur, it means that there is an extreme shortage of food and several children and adults within a certain area are dying of hunger on a daily basis.

Some deadly emergencies happen suddenly, like earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters. This is not the case with famine. A famine happens slowly, caused by long-term conflict, climate shocks, extreme poverty, and other drivers. Famines are never inevitable - they are always predictable, preventable, and man-made.
Download 10 Facts About Hunger >>

Famine Conditions

Famine is a technical term - it is only officially declared when a series of specific food insecurity, mortality, and malnutrition criteria are met.

How is famine declared?

To declare a famine, the world turns to the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system, a framework involving governments, UN agencies, organizations like Action Against Hunger, civil society, and other relevant partners. Together, using the IPC's scientific standards and analytical approach, partners classify the severity and magnitude of food crises in a country.

The IPC has five phases for hunger crises, ranging from Phase 1 (Minimal/None) to Phase 5 (Catastrophic/Famine), and each has its own set of technical criteria.

The key to understanding food emergencies is data - and a lot of it. Action Against Hunger and our partners carry out food security and nutrition surveys to gather information on food availability, malnutrition levels, and mortality rates.

All of the data is then collected and analyzed, and IPC partners agree on the overall results and conclusions. If a country, or part of a country, meets famine (IPC Phase 5) criteria, then each partner - including the country's government - must reach a consensus on these findings before famine is declared. At times, famine declarations can become political decisions, rather than humanitarian ones.

Before and after a famine is declared, the goal of the IPC system is to trigger action to prevent hunger crises from deteriorating further and to save lives. But, though it is a very helpful tool, the system is far from perfect.

Often, the same conditions that cause hunger are the ones that make it incredibly difficult to gather the data needed to determine if famine is occurring.

KEEP UP WITH THE ACTION

Receive the latest news direct from our lifesaving teams.

If opting in to receive SMS updates, you can expect to receive no more than 3 messages a month. Message and data rates may apply. Text "STOP" at any time to opt out.

Conflict Drives Hunger Crises

Conflict is the top driver of hunger. Violence and insecurity put civilians in danger, while making it unsafe for humanitarians to assess the severity of a food crisis and to reach communities most in need of support. Sadly, this means that there are times when famine is suspected - even likely - but there is not enough information to confirm it.

When was the last famine?

There have been just two famines in the 21st century. In 2011, in the midst of a severe drought and conflict, famine was declared in Somalia after an estimated 250,000 people died. In 2017, after years of civil war, parts of South Sudan were found to be experiencing famine.

For months before both of these famines were declared, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations warned of the deteriorating humanitarian crises. Aid eventually came but, for hundreds of thousands of malnourished children and families, it arrived too slowly.

Is famine still a concern today?

After many years of progress in the global fight against hunger, a combination of factors - conflict, climate change, and global inequality - driven millions of people to the brink of starvation.

According to the United Nations, right now, an all-time high of as many as 49 million people in 46 countries could be at risk of falling into famine if they do not get urgent assistance. The countries at highest risk of famine in 2022 are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen.

While famine hasn't been declared - and it may never be - the warning bells are now ringing, and the world must listen. We cannot wait for an official famine designation to take action to save lives.

How we help communities facing famine

We provide lifesaving treatment to severely malnourished children and delivering emergency cash, food, and clean water. Our teams also help to assess the severity of food crises by surveying communities and supplying and analyzing data.

Our teams also research better ways to understand, prevent, and address hunger crises, advocate for greater humanitarian access to communities in need, and push world leaders to take action to create a world free from hunger.

Donate Now

How we fight hunger

We take decisive action against the causes and effects of hunger.

Previous Photo Next Photo

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What is Famine? - Understanding & Defining Famine | Action Against Hunger

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A famine is a catastrophic hunger crisis. Learn about famine and how Action Against Hunger works to prevent and reduce severe hunger crises.

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Nearly one-third of all the food produced is mostly wasted and is more than enough to feed the hundreds of millions of people that go hungry everyday.

https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/reduce-food-waste

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When we stop food waste, we take a big step toward ending hunger.

America has more than enough food for everyone to eat. But each year, billions of pounds of perfectly good food go to waste. Meanwhile, 34 million face hunger in the United States.

As the country's largest food rescue organization, Feeding America partners with food manufacturers, grocery stores, restaurants, and farmers to rescue food and deliver it to food banks serving our neighbors.

What is food waste?

Food waste is safe, high-quality food that is thrown away rather than eaten. Food waste occurs for a variety of reasons, including:

Uneaten food that is thrown out at homes, stores, and restaurants

Crops left in fields because of low crop prices or too many of the same crops being available

Problems during the manufacturing and transportation of food

Food not meeting retailers' standards for color and appearance

How much food waste is there in the United States?

Each year, 119 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. That equates to 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food thrown away each year. Shockingly, nearly 40% of all food in America is wasted.

Food goes to waste at every stage of food production and distribution - from farmers to packers and shippers, from manufacturers to retailers to our homes. Food waste in our homes makes up about 39% of all food waste - about 42 billion pounds of food waste. While commercial food waste makes up about 61% of all food waste or 66 billion pounds of food waste. Feeding America focuses on reducing food waste on farms and in food service, manufacturing, and retail.

What is Feeding America doing about food waste?

Last year, the Feeding America network and our partners rescued 3.6 billion pounds of groceries. That food went directly to meals for people facing hunger. This makes Feeding America the largest food rescue organization in the country.

Food rescue, or food recovery, is collecting high-quality food that would otherwise go to waste and distributing it to people facing hunger. We work with manufacturers, retailers, and farmers to reduce food waste and provide rescued food to our neighbors. Those industries contribute 66 billion pounds of food waste every year.

We identify food at risk of going to waste, offer rescued food to food banks, safely ship food over long distances and keep food fresh longer once it reaches a food bank.

We're working on new ways to get perfectly good food to our neighbors who need it most, including:

MealConnect, makes safe and quick food donations possible by matching food banks to food donations for local businesses. Grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, caterers, and more can use the no-cost platform to donate surplus meals. MealConnect has recently rescued 3 billion pounds of food. Learn how MealConnect works and join today.

Waste It or Taste It?

Can you spot the food that may be destined for the dumpster?
Take the quiz.

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Find out how the Feeding America network of food banks and our partners prevent food waste in the US by rescuing almost 4 billion pounds of food each year.

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In nearly two thirds of countries around the world, women are more likely to suffer more than men from hunger that's because in many cases women eat last and least.

https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/op-ed/2024/03/op-ed-how-conflict-drives-hunger-for-women-and-girls

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Of the 345 million people who are severely hungry in the world right now, nearly 60 per cent are women and girls. The proportion is higher in countries suffering from conflict, where women are trapped in a cycle of disadvantage, poverty, and displacement. In countries and regions including Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Africa's Sahel region, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, women and girls are facing hunger crises due to conflict and fragility.

In Syria, the war has pushed more women to become the main breadwinners, many having to work for the first time with few skills to secure a decent job and fair pay. What little they make barely covers their families' expenses. According to an Oxfam study, women-headed households are among the hardest hit by hunger, reporting a significant decline in their food consumption, and having to skip meals.

At the height of the crisis in Ukraine, assessments showed food security and mental health were bigger worries for women than men, with 52 per cent of Ukrainian women surveyed saying food security was one of their biggest concerns, compared with just 29 per cent of men. A UN Women report shows that war-induced food price hikes and shortages have widened the global gender gap in food insecurity, as women reduce their own food intake to give it to other household members. Women-headed households in Ukraine were already more food insecure prior to the war, with 37.5 per cent of them experiencing moderate or severe levels of food insecurity compared with 20.5 per cent of male-headed households. Rural women in the territories occupied by the Russian military were increasingly unable to perform agricultural work due to high insecurity and lack of resources.

And the entire population of 2.3 million people in Gaza are facing acute levels of food insecurity, with women finding it harder than men to access food. A report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) found that more than half of all Palestinians in Gaza-1.1 million people-have completely exhausted their food supplies and are facing catastrophic hunger. And with most of Gaza's fertile farmland having been destroyed and almost all agricultural, livestock, and fishing production halted, this is likely to worsen. The most affected are women, especially mothers and those breastfeeding, and children.

There are many interconnected reasons that conflict causes disproportionate increases in hunger among women and girls, but they boil down to social and economic roles that have been shaped by pervasive gender discrimination. Women are the family caregivers, assuming sole or primary responsibility for taking care of children, elders, and family members who are ill.

This disproportionate impact on women and girls has further consequences. To cope, some families have resorted to early and forced marriage for girls to sustain themselves. Food-related livelihood activities such as tending fields, foraging for food, or fetching water make women and girls vulnerable to conflict-related sexual violence where conflict parties use such violence. The scarcity of food during conflict forces women and girls to travel further from their villages in search of nourishment, increasing the likelihood of their encountering armed groups who may use sexual violence. Both the threat and actual experience of conflict-related sexual violence impact the well-being of women and girls (as well as their wider families) and affect their ability to provide food and care for their families.

Women have also, however, risen to the challenge of feeding their families and communities during conflict. Experience and evidence show that women are more likely to spend their incomes on food, healthcare, and education. Hence, their engagement and leadership are critical for post-conflict recovery. Targeting women as the first beneficiaries of food aid and social protection, as well as helping them and their communities to complete harvests, can contribute significantly to improving household resilience and to peacebuilding.

While the connections between conflict and food insecurity are complex, and better information is needed on the issue, including how conflict aggravates the political and structural violence that contributes to food insecurity, there are several actions that the international community can prioritize.

First is strengthening women's and girls' voice, agency, participation, and leadership in conflict response, recovery, and peacebuilding. Research has shown that a higher presence of female signatories in peace processes decreases the likelihood of food insecurity in post-conflict societies.

Second is promoting and protecting the right to food by targeting the specific nutrition needs of women and girls, and accelerating the transformation toward more equitable, gender-responsive, and sustainable food systems, as well as equitable access to inputs, technologies, and markets by women.

Third is enhancing gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data to build the evidence base for gender-responsive policy, planning, and reconstruction measures, and to track and monitor the gender-related impacts of food insecurity and energy poverty on women and girls.

Fourth is including food security interventions in peace processes. Sustaining peace encompasses activities aimed at preventing the outbreak, escalation, continuation, and recurrence of conflict, including addressing root causes and moving toward recovery, reconstruction, and development. Opportunities exist for interventions supporting food and nutrition security and agricultural livelihoods to contribute to conflict prevention and sustaining peace and gender equality-so that not only the symptoms but also the root causes of conflicts are addressed.

In 2018, the United Nations Security Council passed a historic resolution recognizing that hunger drives forced displacement-and, conversely, that forced displacement can have a devastating impact on agricultural production. Hunger will never be eliminated without global peace. This resolution called on all parties to armed conflict to comply fully with international humanitarian law and to protect civilian infrastructure critical for the proper functioning of food production and supply systems. International humanitarian law sets out measures to mitigate the impact of armed conflict on civilians.

What is without doubt is that empowering women and girls can end hunger for good and transform whole communities in the process.

Statement: A call on leaders to #ActForHumanity - the world is watching

Press briefing by UN Women, four years since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Ten facts about the world's most severe women's rights crisis

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Op-ed: How conflict drives hunger for women and girls | UN Women - Headquarters

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Women around the world face the brunt of severe hunger, with conflicts exacerbating the inequality. Ending this discrimination requires empowering more women and girls to lead on building peace and food security for all.

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Higher wealth disparity leads to more food insecurity because it limits the access to food for low income people and it also creates obstacles for fresh and clean food.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9362113/

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Food insecurity has economic root causes

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To the Editor — Food insecurity is one predictor of ill health. Is food insecurity a consequence of policy decisions? Yes, in a way. Food insecurity has been linked to low wages, adverse social and economic conditions, limited access to healthy foods, residential segregation, lack of affordable housing and multiple indices of neighbourhood disadvantage. Huge racial, ethnic, economic and even geographic disparities in food insecurity were revealed and underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the US Congress has authorized the White House to call a conference on food, nutrition, hunger and health1 to spark a national discussion of the root causes and social determinants of food insecurity, and the deepening socioeconomic divisions in health.

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Without clean water, illnesses like diarrhea, parasites can prevent children from absorbing key nutrients and lead them to malnutrition.

https://www.unicef.org/stories/4-things-you-need-know-about-water-and-famine

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Weak governments can lead to hunger by fostering instability and conflict which disrupt many food systems and prevent people from growing food.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/dangerously-hungry-link-between-food-insecurity-and-conflict

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Economist Paul Collier once wrote that "war is development in reverse." That conflict inevitably produces poverty and hunger is a theory that has been tested-and proven true-in every major clash across human history. It is believed, for example, that more people died of starvation and starvation-related disease than from combat during the Second World War.

But it is also true that hunger and food insecurity can lead to instability. There is a vicious feedback loop between conflict and hunger currently at play in dozens of countries around the world. War drives hunger and hunger drives war.

In 2017, the World Food Program USA (WFP USA) produced a report titled Winning the Peace: Hunger and Instability. It was a comprehensive review of the literature on "food-related instability"-or the ways that hunger drives conflict. At the time, U.S. lawmakers knew anecdotally that this relationship existed. Former Senate Agriculture Committee chair Pat Roberts (D-KS) said in a 2015 speech, "Show me a nation that cannot feed itself, and I'll show you a nation in chaos." Others, like Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), frequently warned that providing humanitarian assistance in some of the world's most complex emergencies was necessary to avoid more costly-in both blood and treasure-engagements.

Winning the Peace provided a snapshot of what the academic community knew about the relationship between food insecurity and conflict. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, the lingering economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a rise in extreme climate events around the world, 2022 was a year of unprecedented global hunger. Predictably, global instability rose in tandem. At least 12,500 protests occurred last year in countries facing rapid food and fuel price increases.

Academic literature on food-related instability has grown significantly in the last half decade. In fact, almost 50 percent of all the research to be published on food-related instability over the past 20 years has been produced in the last five years alone. A new report by WFP USA, launched in April of 2023, aims to capture this latest thinking in a review of 60 peer-reviewed academic studies produced between 2017 and 2022. Dangerously Hungry is a study of studies. This commentary is a literature review of such studies and discusses specific drivers and motivators of food-related instability, and how to create an improved framework for understanding of the complex relationship between food insecurity and conflict.

Drivers of Food-Related Instability

This review finds that food-related instability has three main drivers: climate change, conflict over natural resources, and economic shocks.

Almost half of all studies reviewed in Dangerously Hungry investigate food-related instability through the lens of climate change: precipitation change, drought, temperature spikes, desertification, and other adverse climate events. This trend reflects tremendous growth in climate security literature in recent years. Many of these studies focus on food systems, often the first sector to feel the impacts of climate change. One study from Kyung Hee University in South Korea, for example, shows that high temperatures during corn growing seasons in sub-Saharan Africa reduced yields and led to a rise in civil conflict. The author suggests that with continued warming, civil conflict in the region is expected to increase by over 30 percent in the coming decade. Meanwhile, another Harvard University study finds that below-average rainfall can increase the likelihood of civil war in Africa by as much as 2.3 percent. In Somalia specifically, a country plagued by long-term droughts, decreases in annual precipitation across the country were associated with an increase in domestic terrorist attacks between 1991 and 2019. The impact of climate change on food systems is driving conflict around the world.

A second driver of food-related instability is competition over natural resources. Conflicts between pastoralists and farmers in the African Sahel are among the most studied examples of food-related instability in this space. Farmer-herder conflict or "pastoralist violence" has increased greatly in the last decade in West and Central Africa, particularly in Nigeria, central Mali and northern Burkina Faso. This includes cattle raids, communal or ethnic violence over land and water resources, and conflict driven by association with violent extremist movements. These trends are exacerbated by fast-spreading desertification and multi-year droughts across the African Sahel. According to the African Center for Strategic Studies, more than 15,000 people have been killed in farmer-herder related conflicts in the last decade alone.

Dangerously Hungry also sheds new light on the ways that agricultural abundance has also been linked to violence. For example, in studying the impacts of wheat and corn production across Africa, Ore Koren of Indiana University suggests that "contrary to previous expectations, conflict is driven by higher yields, on average, and not by scarcity." In these situations of abundance, rebel groups are more likely to use violence to secure access to food resources. Indeed, he shows that the probability of rebel attacks increased significantly in areas with high agricultural potential. This is commonly referred to as "strategic conflict." What the author is referring to in this case, however, is best considered "relative abundance"-conflict over pockets of agricultural productivity in otherwise scarce settings.

Finally, food-related instability is driven by economic shocks. The 2007-2008 global food price crisis led to social unrest in at least 40 low- and middle-income countries in what has been termed the "silent tsunami;" it was the subject of significant attention in the Winning the Peace report. The food price crisis of 2022 bears remarkable similarities to 2008. According to analysis from the International Food Policy Research Institute, food prices were on the rise due to "uneven recovery from the COVID-19 crisis from surges in global demand and supply disruptions from transport and logistics." This confluence of stressors resulted in a global market that was unprepared for the wheat, maize, oilseed, fuel, and fertilizer supply disruptions caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. By the summer of 2022, more than 20 countries were facing protests and riots related, at least in part, to high food prices.

Peer-reviewed research on the 2022 global food price crisis is still forthcoming, but several authors have already estimated the downstream effects it has had, and will continue to have, on conflict. Tufts University economist Eoin McGuirk and deputy director of Stanford's Center on Food Security and the Environment, Marshall Burke, for example, have studied the impact of Russia's war on Ukraine on producer and consumer price indexes, and the effect of these indexes on violence in Africa. They estimate that "the weighted average effect of the Russian invasion to be an increase in intergroup conflict in Africa of 5.3%." That is after considering the conflict-reducing effects of increased prices for farmers across the continent; the economic impacts in the agricultural sector are, after all, two-sided. It continues to be the case that, generally, increased food prices lead to reduced conflict in food-producing areas and increased conflict in food consuming areas.

Motivators of Food-Related Instability

Modern conflicts are almost never driven by a single cause. Food insecurity is often referred to as "the straw that breaks the camel's back" or a "threat multiplier" in conflict events. It is true that food insecurity alone is often not enough to produce conflict; it must also be met with external motivators that cause people to resort to violence, and is strongly determined by the underlying social, political, and economic context. Those motivators can be captured in three interrelated concepts: desperation, grievance, and governance.

Often, the strongest motivator for participation in conflict is economics. This is sometimes referred to as the opportunity cost thesis, which states that when incomes are low and expected returns from fighting outweigh the benefits of traditional economic activity, one's motivation to join a militia or rebellion increases. Researchers refer to this motivator as greed, a reference to the material benefits-even extreme wealth-often anticipated by groups staging rebellion. In the case of recruitment of food insecure populations to extremist movements, though, it is not one's desire for wealth but one's inability to meet their basic needs that is exploited. This is not greed, but desperation.

In interviews with former al Shabaab fighters in Somalia, socioeconomic conditions were the most common motivator for joining. The authors of that study, Anneli Botha and Mahdi Abdile, spoke to one fighter who explained that he and his friends were lured with promises of a mobile phone and $50 a month upon joining. Other terrorist organizations have employed similar recruitment tactics. The Islamic State, for example, offered refugees food and cash payments of up to $1,000 to join, and Boko Haram has been shown to provide meals and loans to prospective recruits. In many settings, violent extremist organizations are also known to capture the means of food production or agricultural resources in order to fuel their rebellion. Food insecurity can raise the cost of mounting an insurgency, leading to the victimization of people who produce and hold food. Violence against civilians, in other words, can be a resource mobilization strategy.

The second category of motivation is grievance. One major criticism of the opportunity cost framework (i.e., individual greed or desperation) is its inattention to the collective action required for widespread rebellion. Although it is true that individuals are motivated to engage in violence due to unemployment, wage losses, and rising costs of living (including food costs), collective agency-or a force that brings people together-is also required for higher levels of violence. Food price riots are a good example of this grievance-based phenomenon, with high food prices (especially for foods of cultural importance) fueling frustration and mistrust that cuts across class and ethnic groups. Grievance, of course, can also be divisive. In grievance-motived instability involving food, food insecurity is often the straw that breaks the camel's back and causes societies to cleave along preestablished lines over perceived or real inequalities or discrimination.

Finally, food-related instability is made more likely through poor governance. The inability of a government to ensure an adequate food supply for its people can lead to questions over a government's legitimacy and ability to fulfill its people's most basic needs. In a 2017 report by the UN Development Program, the authors note that 71 percent of voluntary recruits (to extremist groups) identified government action as the final trigger that motivated them to join the organization. Limited government capacity to provide services or policing can create a "vacuum effect," which is a dynamic that provides an opening for rebel groups to offer an alternative and suggest that they themselves could provide those basic services to people.

Conclusion

Modern conflicts are not confined by political borders, and hunger emergencies must be addressed before they metastasize into large-scale security threats. U.S. lawmakers and officials are also becoming more cognizant of the fact that food insecurity is of consequence to national security. In October 2022, the Biden administration released its U.S. National Security Strategy. At the time of its writing, the world had reached record levels of food insecurity- 349 million people across 79 countries faced crisis levels of hunger and almost one million people in Somalia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, South Sudan and Yemen were experiencing famine-like conditions. The 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy cited food on 30 occasions, more than double the highest-ever number of references in a strategy document and more than 10 times the number of references than the previous strategy. In late 2022 the U.S. Senate and Congress passed resolutions- S.Res.669 and H.Res.922 -condemning the use of food as a weapon of war and bringing new resources to bear on the problem of food-related instability.

The United States has long led the effort to fight global hunger, not only because it is a moral imperative, but because it is economically and strategically smart. It was clear in 2017, and it is even more obvious now: one of the surest pathways to instability is failing to feed someone who cannot feed themselves or their families.
Chase Sova is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Eilish Zembilci is an adjunct fellow (non-resident) with the CSIS Global Food Security Program.

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Dangerously Hungry: The Link between Food Insecurity and Conflict

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The WFP USA's Dangerously Hungry report explores the complex relationship between food insecurity and instability, confirming that conflict drives hunger, but also that hunger drives conflict. The report's lead authors summarize its findings.

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Many people feel small and also feel like the potential help will not make a difference. Due to the fact that they feel like they wouldn't make a difference they would rather not do anything at all. This could effect hunger a lot and could cost the chance of families being fed.

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However, people in rural communities and the South are often more likely to lack access to enough food. This is because of many factors like poverty, unemployment, and the cost of living,

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34 million people are food insecure in the United States. That's millions of people facing hunger. Learn more about hunger in America.

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Many people around the world may feel overwhelmed or tired of constant news of world hunger and suffering. Another reason could be that no one feels the sense of urgency when it's not effecting them or community specifically.

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What is Food Insecurity? | Feeding America

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Hunger affects millions of people in America. Learn about the root causes of food insecurity and hunger in America and it's impacts.

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The hunger crisis in Africa South of Sahara is driven by many reasons including droughts, floods, conflicts, economic challenges, and climate change. Millions of people are situations, with malnutrition rates rising specifically affecting young children. Events like the El Nino weather phenomenon and civil strife in places like Sudan have definitely worsened the situation.

https://www.globalhungerindex.org/regions/africa-south-of-the-sahara.html

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Global Hunger Index (GHI) - peer-reviewed annual publication designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and country levels

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Africa South of the Sahara is the world region with the highest and most concerning hunger levels.

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The civil war that started in 2023, has caused the worst crisis in the world. It has pushed the country to the brink of famine. More than 24 million people in Sudan are facing food insecurity and the situation is worsening with extreme weather conditions and the lack of access for work.

https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/sudan

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Sudan risks becoming the world’s largest hunger crisis in recent history as conflict continues to rage, destroying livelihoods, infrastructure, trade routes and supply chains.A protracted famine is taking hold – the only place in the world at this level of hunger – and without humanitarian

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These regions are experiencing record hunger levels. Over 50 million people faced severe food insecurity during the June 2025 lean season. Conflict and also economic hardship were key factors.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/05/1163086

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More than 36 million are struggling to meet their basic food needs, which is projected to rise to over 52 million during the lean season from June to August, latest analysis reveals.

This includes almost three million people facing emergency conditions, and 2,600 people in Mali who are at risk of catastrophic hunger.

Although needs are at a historic high, resources are limited, with millions of lives at stake.

" Without immediate funding, WFP will be forced to scale down even further both in the number of people reached and the size of food rations distributed," said Margot van der Velden, Regional Director for West and Central Africa.

'Extremely difficult and dire'

In 2019, only four per cent of the population was food insecure compared to 30 per cent today, according to Ollo Sib, a senior research adviser with WFP.

"We hope that our voice will be heard because this food security situation in the Sahel remains extremely difficult and dire," he said, speaking from Dakar to journalists in Geneva.

Mr. Sib recently travelled to some of the affected areas, such as communities in northern Ghana grappling with unprecedented drought.

"They were forced to replant two to three times, and for them, each failed sowing is an additional financial burden as the cost of fertilisers and seeds were extremely high in those locations," he said.

The assessment team also went to northern Mali, which is the only place in the region where people are facing catastrophic food security conditions.

"We had the opportunity to interact with pastoralist elders who typically sell their livestock to buy cereals," he said.

"This year they were worried because the cost of food rose by 50 per cent compared to the five-year average. But at the same time, they are not able to access markets to sell their goods."

Fighting, food inflation and floods

WFP said unyielding conflict is among the factors driving deepening hunger in West and Central Africa.

Fighting has displaced more than 10 million of the most vulnerable people across the region, including more than two million refugees and asylum seekers, in Chad, Cameroon, Mauritania and Niger.

Nearly eight million more have been internally displaced, mainly in Nigeria and Cameroon.

Meanwhile, food inflation exacerbated by rising food and fuel costs are pushing hunger levels to new highs.

At the same time, recurrent extreme weather "erodes the ability of families to feed themselves," WFP said.

Five million at risk

WFP stands ready to respond and scale up vital assistance in West Africa and the Sahel. The UN agency is seeking $710 million to support its life-saving operations through the end of October.

The aim is to reach almost 12 million people this year with critical assistance.

So far, teams have already reached three million of the most vulnerable including refugees, internally displaced people, malnourished children under five, and pregnant or breastfeeding women and girls.

The agency said that five million risk losing assistance unless urgent funding is found.

Address root causes

WFP also called for governments and partners to invest in sustainable solutions aimed at building resilience and reducing long-term dependency on aid.

Since 2018, the UN agency has been working with regional governments to address the root causes of hunger through a programme that has rehabilitated over 300,000 hectares of land to support over four million people in more than 3,400 villages.

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More than 50 million in West and Central Africa at risk of hunger

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The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that millions of people in West and Central Africa are facing record hunger as conflict, displacement, economic hardship and repeated extreme weather push the region towards a major crisis.

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Millions remain food insecure after the region's worst drought in 40 years (2020-2023). While some areas saw improved rainfall in 2024, the effects of the drought continued conflict and still causing high food prices and poor living conditions.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/situations/drought-food-insecurity-greater-horn-of-africa

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Millions in the greater Horn of Africa are facing acute hunger as the region faces one of the worst droughts in recent decades, compounded by years of conflict and instability, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising food prices due to, in part, the war in Ukraine.

As families face severe food insecurity, many have left their homes in search of food and water, and pasture for animals. Large-scale displacement is often accompanied by a deterioration in hygiene and sanitation. Outbreaks of infectious diseases are a major concern, especially when combined with low existing vaccination coverage and health service availability.

As people become increasingly food insecure, they also must make the impossible choice between food and healthcare, even as nutritional deficiencies make them increasingly vulnerable to disease. This is particularly true for children, for whom the combination of malnutrition and disease can prove fatal.

With malnutrition and displacement, the need for health services will increase as people become weaker and more vulnerable to disease.

WHO is coordinating with partners in the health sector and beyond to ramp up its response in the region to avert the worst effects of food insecurity and to give people access to the health services they need.

Along with countering the consequences of malnutrition, WHO is helping countries to prepare for outbreaks of diseases like cholera, measles and malaria. This includes improving surveillance systems for communicable diseases to identify and respond to new outbreaks quickly.

Among affected populations, WHO helps ensure that essential health services like those for sexual and reproductive health, treatment for chronic infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV, as well as mental health services as people are at high risk of violence and distress can continue without disruption.

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Drought and food insecurity in the greater Horn of Africa

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Millions in the greater Horn of Africa are facing acute hunger as the region faces one of the worst droughts in recent decades, compounded by years of conflict and instability, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising food prices due to, in part, the war in Ukraine.

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Some donors lack trust in charities. They feel like their money is being wasted on other costs rather than people. However, many charities solve this problem by showing us how funds are used and where they go.

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ABOUT HOMELESSNESS
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, over 582,000 people experience homelessness on any given night in the United States.
Homelessness Facts

Chronic homelessness is the term given to individuals that experience long-term or repeated bouts of homelessness.

127,705 individuals are considered chronically unhoused, an 16% increase between 2020 and 2022.

Over 67,000 of all homeless persons are veterans, comprising 10.6% of all unhoused people in the U.S.

Veterans are more than 2x as likely to become unhoused than those who didn't serve in the military.

60% of the entire homeless population are men.

Although they only make up 12% of the U.S. population, 37% of all people experiencing homelessness are African American.

Causes

The U.S. has a shortage of 7.3 million rental homes affordable and available to renters with extremely low incomes - that is, incomes at or below either the federal poverty guideline or 30% of their area median income. Only 33 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households.

Poverty is the other major factor that contributes to homelessness. A lack of employment opportunities, combined with a decline in public assistance, leaves low-income families just an illness or accident away from being put out on the street.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a family with a full-time worker making minimum wage could not afford fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the U.S.

The average person would need to make $25.82 per-hour to afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment - more than 3x the federal minimum wage.

Poor health is also closely linked to homelessness. 20% of the homeless population reported having a mental illness, 16% had conditions related to substance abuse, and thousands had HIV/AIDS, diabetes, or heart disease.

For many young people, single adults, and families, domestic violence is the primary cause of their homelessness.

The nationwide issues of homelessness and food insecurity form a critical intersection that severely impacts public health. An escalating housing crisis and inadequate income have trapped millions of Americans in a relentless cycle, leaving their health subjected to stressful living situations. Homelessness and food insecurity are not isolated problems, rather they amplify each other, creating a tempest of social and health deficiencies.

To combat these critical issues, there are a few things you can do to help. Starting with food insecurity, you can contribute to food banks, volunteer at local food distribution centers, and endorse policies that ensure everyone has access to healthy food options.

Simultaneously, it's important to address homelessness - by advocating for affordable housing, offering time or resources to shelters, and supporting policy changes for fair wages and employment opportunities. Our collective actions can build a compassionate and understanding society, significantly impacting those who are suffering.

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About Hunger and Homelessness | Move for Hunger

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Learn about hunger and homelessness in America. A look at the facts about homelessness and food insecurity data show that hunger and homelessness often have distinct causes.

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How can food systems in Africa adapt to climate related disruptions?

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How can food systems in Africa adapt to climate related disruptions?

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How does climate change impact food production in Africa?

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How does climate change impact food production in Africa?

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What changes are necessary for governments to prioritize food systems in Africa?

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What changes are necessary for governments to prioritize food systems in Africa?