Guterres noted that crops across Asia, Africa and the Americas will suffer as farmers around the world struggle to cope with rising fertilizer and energy prices.
The head of the United Nations warned on Friday that the world was facing a “catastrophe” due to a growing food shortage around the world.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the war in Ukraine has combined disruptions caused by climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and inequality to create an “unprecedented global hunger crisis” that is already affecting millions of people.
“There is a real risk that many famines will be declared in 2022,” he said in a video message to officials from dozens of wealthy and developing countries gathered in Berlin. “And 2023 could be worse.”
Guterres noted that crops across Asia, Africa and the Americas will suffer as farmers around the world struggle to cope with rising fertilizer and energy prices.
“This year’s food access issues could become next year’s global food shortages,” he said. “No country will be left untouched by the social and economic consequences of such a catastrophe.”
Guterres said UN negotiators were working on a deal that would enable Ukraine to export food, including to the Black Sea, and allow Russia to bring food and fertilizers to world markets without any restrictions.
He also called for debt relief for poor countries to help keep their economies afloat and for the private sector to help stabilize global food markets.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Barbock, the host of the Berlin meeting, said Moscow’s claim that Western sanctions imposed on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were attributed to food shortages were “completely unforgivable.”
Bairbock said Russia exported as much wheat in May and June this year as in the same months of 2021.
He reiterated Guterres’ comments that several factors are behind the growing hunger crisis around the world.
“But it was the war of Russia’s attack against Ukraine that turned a wave into a tsunami,” Barabock said.
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