According to the IPC report on South Sudan about 6.6 million people – or over half of South Sudan’s population (54%) – are experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity (when people do not have enough healthy food to eat), classified in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse between October and November.
Action Against Hunger UK’s Head of Advocacy, Kate Munro, responds to the report:
“The recent IPC* report on South Sudan reinforces that the country is facing a hunger crisis. This is mainly fuelled by climate change, with over 900,000 people affected by floods across 29 counties in South Sudan. The floods have affected trade and along with conflict and escalating prices for foodstuffs could see around eight million people in the country facing crisis levels of hunger next year.
“These numbers have been increasing over the years. In fact, there has been a fourfold increase in the number of people not having enough food to eat in South Sudan. This is even the case during the harvest season, when over half the population are not getting enough access to food at a time of year when there is more of it.
“On the eve of COP27 it is imperative that we shine a light on countries like South Sudan, which traditionally do not get the attention they should but are nonetheless affected by climate change the most.
“We need urgent new commitments from governments at COP27 to keep within the 1.5 degrees target affirmed at the summit in the UK last year. Reneging on this could see 80 million people being affected by climate change-driven hunger in 2050. This is on top of the 828 million people worldwide who already don’t have enough food to eat because of international aid not meeting the scale of the emergency.”
ENDS
Notes to editor
- *The IPC Classification System distinguishes and links acute food insecurity, chronic food insecurity and acute malnutrition to support more strategic and better coordinated responses. Read more about IPC classification here
- Interviews with Action Against Hunger UK’s spokespeople available upon request. Contact Lucy or David on press@actionagainsthunger.org.uk or 0208293 6130 to arrange.
- Action Against Hunger is the world’s leading charity stopping life-threatening hunger in its tracks. By training parents and healthcare workers to spot the signs, we get life-saving care to people who need it. Action Against Hunger’s research drives forward understanding of how to predict, prevent and treat life-threatening hunger. With unbeatable knowledge and unstoppable determination, the charity supported more than 26 million people across 51 countries in 2021.
- For more information, please visit Action Against Hunger UK’s website or follow Action Against Hunger UK on Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.