Global hunger increasing but funding of aid programs declining, says top World Food Programme official in GCC

Global hunger increasing but funding of aid programs declining, says top World Food Programme official in GCC

DUBAI: As conflict, natural disasters and climate change stalk swathes of the world, a simultaneous epidemic is spreading: an estimated 345 million people in 79 countries are facing acute hunger.

Abdel-Mageed Yahia, director of World Food Programme’s UAE office and representative for the Gulf Cooperation Council region, says that unless food needs are met, the hunger epidemic may become catastrophic.

“It’s true that this year, we are facing an unprecedented hunger level,” he said during a special interview with Arab News Japan recorded in Dubai.

“We said 2023 is going to be a difficult year, although we had a lot of success in 2022 when we were able to reach around 140 million people.”

Of the more than 340 million facing hunger in the world, he added, 40 million are “in the extreme level of hunger, which is one step away from famine.”

Sudanese girls who fled the conflict in Geneina in Sudan's Darfur region, receive rice portions from Red Cross volunteers in Ourang on the outskirts of Adre, Chad July 25, 2023. (Reuters)

According to Yahia, “all of it starts with the conflicts which we are seeing in different parts of the world, from the Middle East to Africa, from the Horn of Africa and the Sahel