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One in four people in South Africa do not have enough to eat, and half the population is at risk of hunger, despite the country producing more than enough food.

With abnormally high food prices and slowing efforts to tackle global hunger, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) must now energize governments to begin fixing the broken global food system, at its annual meeting in Rome from Oct 15 – 20.

In reaction to today’s UN 2023 Global Humanitarian Outlook report, revealing that 339 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid - the highest caseload in history -  Oxfam’s Global Humanitarian Director Marta Valdes Garcia said: “One in every 23 people around the world –the equivalent of nearly half of the entire population of Europe– is now in urgent need of humanitarian aid. This news must be an immediate wake-up call. 

Oxfam is concerned that the progress in fighting hunger is slowing down. We must not lose sight of the fact that in 2015 there are still 795 million people not getting enough to eat in a world of plenty. This is unjust and inexcusable.

Six months after the conflict erupted in Tigray, thousands of farmers have nothing to plant ahead of the rainy season as the crisis compounded by climate-fueled locust devastated their tools and livestock and pushed over 5 million people to extreme levels of hunger, warned Oxfam today.

“Oxfam is dismayed at this third consecutive year of rising hunger. We’re back to where we were a decade ago. As ever, hunger is caused by human actions that drive poverty and inequality, conflict and war, poor governance, wastage, and worsening climate change," said Oxfam International’s executive director Winnie Byanyima in response..

As UNGA77 kicks off, Oxfam experts are engaging with a delegation in New York along with remote participation. Oxfam experts will be focused on issues including Hunger and the Global Food System, Climate Justice, the crisis in Yemen, Ukraine, COVID-19 recovery, Inequality, Education, and more. 

Oxfam calls for a radical shake-up in the way the world deals with food crises in Ethiopia and beyond. The agency rounded on what it called a “knee-jerk reaction” to food crises which is dominated by sending food aid.

In reaction to the United Nations Food Systems Summit, which was held over the past two days, Thierry Kesteloot, Oxfam’s food policy advisor said:“The Food Systems Summit has failed hundreds of millions who are going hungry every day, by offering elitist and mere band-aid solutions rather than tackling the root causes of our broken global food system.

Max Lawson, Oxfam International's Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said: "The G7 had failed the Global South here in Hiroshima.  They failed to cancel debts, and they failed to find what is really required to end the huge increase in hunger worldwide. They can find untold billions to fight the war but can’t even provide half of what is needed by the UN for the most critical humanitarian crises."