Every year, a large number of parents around the world are unable to get enough nutritious food for their children, not even enough food to satisfy their hunger. But in this world, we are producing food products that everyone can eat every year. Even after this, in the normal situation before the Kovid-19 epidemic, by 2019, 81 crore 10 lakh people of the world had to go to bed without eating every day or at midnight. 13 crore people from 55 countries have spent the year 2019 in the midst of food insecurity. Even one in three people in the world suffers from some form of malnutrition.
The number of people suffering from this disease has definitely increased in 2020 and 2021 – as many recent reports from several international organizations have reflected. Poverty, hunger and malnutrition have become a major challenge for the world today, especially in this time of crisis, especially for developing and underdeveloped countries like ours.
In 2015, the situation of poverty, hunger and malnutrition in the world was much better than today. Yet it was a tragedy for the victims. At that time, the world community adopted the ’16 Sustainable Development Goals’, better known as the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), to improve the living standards of the world’s people by 2030. The second point was: ‘Zero Hunger’. The goal is to end hunger, achieve food security, promote nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Many questions can be easily raised about the stage of success of achieving that promise. World leaders have inadvertently forgotten that a war-free world is the first condition for ending hunger, achieving food security, promoting nutrition and implementing the promise of sustainable agricultural development. On the contrary, since this announcement, world leaders have been directly and indirectly increasing the level of war in many countries of the world. Many countries are now in dire straits because of their war. In these countries people are dying every day without eating. Hunger, poverty and malnutrition seem to have made permanent home in these countries.
In the meantime, coronavirus outbreaks continue in 2020 and 2021 – making global hunger, poverty and malnutrition worse. The reports that are being published at this time are making us think. According to a report by Oxfam published last month, while seven people are dying every minute in the world due to Kovid-19 infection, 11 people are dying every minute due to hunger. These statistics say that the effects of hunger have become more terrible than Kovid.
According to the report of this donor organization, 150 million people in the world are now suffering from food insecurity. This time the number has increased by two crore as compared to last year. Therefore, hunger has now become the biggest epidemic in the world today. Compared to last year, the intensity of hunger has increased six times. One-third of the 1.5 crore starving people have been starved due to the military conflict. People in countries where war or military conflict is taking place are suffering from hunger, poverty and malnutrition at the highest rates.
According to last mid-June, the worst famines are in Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen. The number of hungry people in these countries has increased 5 times compared to last year. According to Oxfam, the food security situation has deteriorated further in several other countries, including Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and Venezuela. The main reason for this is the detrimental effect of covid on the economy. This information is contained in Oxfam’s report titled ‘Global Food Crisis’. However, it goes without saying that the effects of war are also involved. This is also reflected in the Oxfam report. Oxfam says the main causes of this extreme hunger are: epidemics, environmental crises and country-to-country or internal military conflicts. War alone has exacerbated hunger and poverty. Since the start of the Corona epidemic, 100 million people in 23 war-torn countries have been pushed to the brink of starvation. In these countries, food shortages have risen sharply.
Unfortunately, instead of the Corona epidemic Macabella, the warring parties are more engaged in war against each other. Despite the environmental and economic problems in these countries, the governments of these countries do not have the opportunity to focus on ending it. On the contrary, hunger is being used as a tactical weapon in these countries. Money for food, drink and medicine of civilians is going to buy weapons. The tragic consequence of this is famine. Even after this, people cannot stay in their own homes. Some have fled the country, while others are internally displaced. They have an uncertain future with hunger and poverty. The world leaders are 100% responsible for this. Because, they have direct and indirect help in these wars and conflicts. Their public declaration is ‘Zero Hunger’, and the tactical effort is to push the countries of the world to the extreme level of weakness through hunger and thereby further strengthen their leadership. This extreme effort of world leaders is going on all over the Middle East.
Despite suffering from food insecurity, the military spending of these countries has increased by 5 billion 1 billion dollars even during this epidemic. The amount of money needed by the United Nations to satisfy the hunger of the people of the world is more than six times that amount, according to the Oxfam report. So Oxfam urges warring nations to avoid this conflict, so that people.
In a recent report, the IMF noted that an additional 80 million people in low-income countries could fall into extreme poverty by 2020-21 due to covid. These include the people of Bangladesh. A couple of weeks ago, the IMF released the ‘World Economic Outlook (WEO) Update’. It noted that the slowdown in immunization in low-income countries has not led to economic recovery and poverty alleviation.
Releasing the economic outlook update at a press conference at the IMF headquarters in Washington DC, IMF chief economist Geeta Gopinath said the growth forecast for low-income developing countries in 2021 showed that there was no momentum in vaccinating these countries.
According to the outlook, the slowdown in vaccination will cause global GDP to grow at 6 percent in 2021 and 4.9 percent in 2022. The same growth rate was announced in the Outlook Update announced in April 2021. However, in this outlook, the IMF did not disclose the GDP growth rate for Bangladesh.
According to the update, the new virus could cause a second wave of infections in developing markets and developing countries by the end of 2021. The new strain of the virus is thought to pose a greater risk to countries with low vaccination rates. Even in many developed countries there is a risk. According to the latest Outlook Update, oil prices could rise by about 60 percent from their lows in 2020, even if the economic recovery intensifies. The price of non-oil products may increase by 30 percent. In order to reverse this trend, there is an urgent need to accelerate the globalization of immunization programs in parallel.
We get a major indication from the various reports that have been published recently. The Corona epidemic is not only taking the lives of huge numbers of people, it is also stopping the wheel of economic growth. The number of poor people is increasing in the country. It is also increasing hunger, poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity. So at this time, the urge to strengthen the corona is coming first. In this case, the main task is to complete the vaccination as soon as possible. Experience so far has shown that countries that have put more emphasis on vaccination than enforcing lockdowns and shutdowns are now reaping the benefits. Countries that have been slow to vaccinate are now struggling to cope with the second wave of corona.
We have also noticed a slowdown in vaccination in Bangladesh in the past. Fortunately, the vaccination program in Bangladesh, along with several other countries, has been accelerated, albeit belatedly. Before the vaccine reached the country, there were many doubts in the minds of the people. People were waiting in doubt as to when it would be his turn to get his own vaccine. Some people were concerned about the side effects of the vaccine. However, now the registration for vaccination has been greatly increased. As a result, the government’s image in dealing with Corona has improved dramatically. When Corona was introduced in Bangladesh in March 2020, the government’s unawareness and incompetence in dealing with Corona strongly criticized the government. Because, then the lack of proper preparation of the government to deal with Corona was clearly caught. That is when the lack of proper management in this case was finally caught. At the same time, there was a shortage of beds, emergency rooms, ICU units, ventilators, equipments, doctors and nurses for Kovid patients in the hospital. Then there is a need to recruit more human resources and invest more in healthcare.
Whatever he is, now the situation is showing that there is no more opportunity to show leniency in the vaccination program in Bangladesh. Vaccination of the entire population should be completed as soon as possible to end the lockdown and shutdown. People have to be sent to work following hygiene rules. We have to create a situation for opening schools, colleges and higher education institutions. The unimaginable damage that has been done to the lives of students who have closed schools, colleges and other educational institutions in 2020 and 2021 cannot be allowed to increase. Immunization programs need to be strengthened if the economy is to recover, stop the rising number of the poor, tackle hunger, poverty, malnutrition and ensure food security, and bring people’s livelihoods back to normal. There is no alternative for now.