THE United Nations World Food Programme, on Friday, warned that Nigeria, Liberia and 23 other countries would experience acute levels of hunger in the coming months as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Report also listed Ethiopia, Cameroon, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Honduras, El-Salvador, Yemen, Iraq, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Haiti, Somalia, and South Sudan, among others, as countries that would face food shortage.
It stated that the pandemic’s rapid spread was putting additional strains on the Nigerian economy, which was already impacted by the fall in oil prices.
This, it added, had further affected government revenues and foreign currency reserves, noting that it had increased the depreciation of the local currency.
The report said, “According to Food Security Outlook June 2020 to January 2021, it
is unlikely that a famine is currently ongoing in inaccessible areas.
“However, famine could occur if there is a dramatic uptick or shift in conflict that isolates households from typical food and income sources, and humanitarian assistance, for a prolonged period of time.”
To prevent multiple food crises resulting from the secondary impacts of the pandemic, and to safeguard people already suffering from acute food insecurity, the WFP said there was a need to preserve and scale up critical humanitarian food, nutrition and livelihood assistance.
The coronavirus pandemic had led to unprecedented disruptions to global supply chains, sharp drop in global crude oil prices, turmoil in global stock and financial markets,
lockdown of large swaths movements of persons in many countries, among others.
These outcomes have had severe consequences on households’ livelihoods and business activities, resulting from a drop in global demand, decline in consumer confidence and slowdown in production.
Experts say the overall medium-term outlook for the global economy remains uncertain with increased deterioration in financial market conditions and weak global output growth.
Some of the major threats to the current projection for global economic growth include disruption to the global supply chain arising from the COVID-19 pandemic; oil price downturn as a result of subdued global demand and vulnerabilities in major financial markets.
Others are rising corporate debt in the advanced economies and public debt in some emerging market and developing economies; as well as broad uncertainties leading to adverse shocks to foreign investment flows.
