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The threat of “COVID famines” and widespread extreme hunger are setting off every alarm bell within the international community, but so far sluggish funding of the UN's appeal is hampering humanitarian agencies’ efforts to deliver urgent assistance to people in need.

As the G8 Summit comes to a close, international agency Oxfam criticized the leaders for their failure to deliver on their promises and for trying to divert attention by cobbling together a small initiative for maternal and child health.

Millions of poor and vulnerable people face hunger and poverty this year and next because of record global temperatures, droughts and erratic rains in 2014 and 2015, compounded by the development of possibly the most powerful El Niño on record.

One person is likely dying of hunger every 48 seconds in drought-ravaged Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, according to estimates by Oxfam and Save the Children in a report published today highlighting the world’s repeated failure to stave off preventable disasters. 

Speaking at the end of the Rio+20 UN Summit on Sustainable Development, Barbara Stocking, Chief Executive, Oxfam GB said:

A new era of high and volatile food prices is causing life-changing shifts in society, according to Oxfam and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in a joint report published today.

A new Oxfam report today says that as many as 11 people are likely dying of hunger and malnutrition each minute. This is more than the current global death rate of COVID-19, which is around seven people per minute. The report, ‘says that conflict remains the primary cause of hunger since the pandemic, pushing over half a million people into famine-like conditions ―a six-fold increase since 2020.

Political leaders have admitted that they will probably fail to deliver on promises to halve world hunger by 2015

Welcoming the publication of the World Bank report, Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impa

Hunger is not and need never be inevitable. However climate change threatens to put back the fight to eradicate it by decades – and our global food system is woefully unprepared to cope with the challenge.