Tuesday 21 July 2020

Combination of epidemic, conflicts, economic crisis, and drought

According to Oxfam, an estimated 122 Million people could face starvation due to coronavirus epidemic, as many as 12,000 people could die a day from hunger before the end of this year.

As a result of Coronavirus, most people in Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, and Yemen are facing famine. In those countries, informal laborers are suffering the most, because hundreds and hundrends of people have lost their job. Many people have been displaced, and many of them have been living in places where world  powers have triggered regional conflicts. We also have a combination of two or more problems, such as conflicts, economic crisis, and drought related to climate change. This is not something that the poorest countries can deal with.

In this context, the Coronavirus crisis shows that we have a broken food system, millions of people live in those countries above mentioned, identified by the World Food Program as "hunger hotspots", where travel restrictions have disrupted global food supplies and incomes. That's the main raison why the World Food Program has been supporting farmers in West African Sahel, helping them to consolidate their land and environs, supplying food with the aim of find a solution. But while Covid-19 crisis is growing around the world, with infections rising by the day, experts say the solution is not just in donating to charities. 


As mentioned recently by "Millionares for Humanity", a collective of 83 wealthy people, permanent tax increase on the wealthiest people on the planet is the right choice.  In 2013 a French economist, Thomas Piketty, already said in his book, that the implementation of a more progressive tax system at the global level is the only choice.