On the 2nd April 2019 Sigrid Kaag, Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation, and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, French Secretary of State to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, participated in the High-level event "Food and agriculture in times of crisis" of the Global Network against Food Crises in Brussels. In the past three years hunger has been on the rise after decades of decline. With almost a billion people suffering from hunger, the Global Report on Food Crises, launched early April 2019 highlights conflicts and climate change effects as major factors.
"Conflict and insecurity, climate shocks and economic turbulence – the main drivers of food insecurity – continued to erode livelihoods and destroy lives"
With 60% of the people suffering from hunger living in conflict countries, conflicts are considered the main driver for acute food insecurity. UN resolution 2417 from May 2018 recognizes how armed conflicts have deep impacts on agricultural production and livelihoods, condemning forced displacements of populations and the use of food and starvation as a method of warfare. 30% of the of the cases of hunger are related to climate change, with a clearly increasing threat projected in case of lacking action. Kaag and Lemoyne highlighted "the need for quick responses to these shocks but also long-term remedies to build resilient and sustainable agri-food value chains."
Strengthening the most vulnerable countries should be a priority as it proved to be a good development policy and contributes to falling the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development and especially SDG2 which targets the end of hunger by 2030.
To counter the challenging conditions of crises and conflict ridden regions, the Netherlands and France propose joint efforts. Two actions are emphasized to provide an inclusive and sustainable solution:
- the reinforcement of the resilience of populations
- the fight against malnutrition.
One example is the Sahel region, one of the Planetary Security Initiatives spotlight regions for the past four years, where the combination climate shocks and long-lasting conflicts have a multiplying effect and worsen the situation in this region. Just recently the conflict saw another wave of violence in Mali, that can be related to climate impacts. More on this particular case can be found here.