Even as the countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) awaits word on the progress made so far to push back on its food security challenges, confronting, to varying degrees, most of the member countries of the regional movement, a new report is painting an eye-opening picture of worsening food challenges confronting swathes of countries that extend far beyond the borders of the region.
Late last month, the Global Report on Food Crises, which provides an annual analysis of the scale of acute hunger, globally, asserted that in 2023, almost 282 million people in fifty-nine countries, endured “high levels of acute hunger,” a number that represented an increase of 24 million from the previous year. Of late, according to the report, the worsening food crisis was due in large measure to conflicts that have impaired food availability, particularly in Sudan and the Gaza Strip.
This year’s Global Report on Food Crises will resonate in the Caribbean, where several countries in the region are awaiting word on the pace of progress on the easing of a food security crisis made public by various international agencies back in 2022. The more recent Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) comes even as the effort to address the regional one would appeared to have been slowed by the failure, up to this time, to provide member countries of CARICOM of the pace of progress towards the completion of a promised food security terminal.
The GRFC is globally recognized as the definitive reference document from which a comprehensive analysis of global, regional and country level acute food security information is secured. It draws attention to the severity and numbers of people caught up in food security crises arising out of persistent conflict, economic shocks and weather extremes. With an increasingly incremental worsening of global food security bona fides having occurred for four consecutive years, the proportion of people facing acute food security has remained persistently high.
Never a region that has considered itself to be facing a food security crisis over the years, CARICOM was jolted into soberness, when almost two years ago in September 2022, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that nearly 4.1 million people in the Caribbean were facing food insecurity. While this disclosure and other corroborating data from the UN and other agencies confirmed that the region was indeed facing a food security crisis, an initially energetic food security undertaking by CARICOM, and spearheaded by Guyana and Barbados, has slowed in the face of a failure to deliver a report on the pace of its progress.
Worryingly, the GRFC report has tagged “children and women” as bearing the brunt of these hunger crises, while here in the Caribbean, the most acutely affected victims are from the smaller food-dependent countries of the region with modest or non-existent agricultural sectors that are dependent on extra-regional food imports. With its long-standing track record in the agricultural sector, much is dependent on Guyana to help push back the regional food security challenge. Meanwhile, a more universal call has been issued by the Global Network Against Food Crises urgently for a transformative approach that integrates peace, prevention and development action alongside at-scale emergency efforts to break the cycle of acute hunger which remains at unacceptably high levels. It is unclear whether the countries of the Caribbean Community will add their voices to a response to that call.
