US announces additional funding to respond to global food insecurity

GOOBJOOG NEWS|NEW YORK: Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday announced nearly $215 million in additional humanitarian assistance to address the global food security crisis, at the UN Security Council’s Ministerial on Food Security in New York.

The global food security crisis, which has been exacerbated by Russia’s war on Ukraine and its corresponding impact on global markets is projected to push as many as 40 million people into poverty and food insecurity through the end of the year, with the UN projecting that even before the Ukraine war, approximately 768 million people were chronically hungry.

The $215 million additional support, provided through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will expand emergency food security operations in several countries already facing food insecurity as a result of conflict, drought, and other natural disasters, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Yemen.

In addition to announcing new humanitarian food assistance funding, the United States will issue a Roadmap for the Global Food Security Call to Action to reflect the outcomes of the ministerial-level meeting, outlining the commitments that countries have made to address these challenges.

The United States has said it has provided nearly $2.6 billion in emergency food assistance since Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. This includes nearly $1.7 billion in humanitarian assistance to respond to worsening food insecurity around the world.

Somali, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, and Yemen, countries currently facing severe food insecurity are set to benefit from a $670 million food assistance program provided by USAID and the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust.

The United States has said it will continue scaling up assistance to respond to the global food security crisis by increasing emergency food assistance in countries that have high levels of food insecurity and are vulnerable to price shocks, calling on other donors to increase funding to prevent the situation from getting even worse and use data analysis to project the potential impacts of the crisis on countries with existing humanitarian emergencies.