We Must Renew Our Efforts to Fight Rising Poverty and Hunger

In 2015, World Leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  The 17 SDGs call for action by all countries to promote prosperity while maintaining peace, protecting the planet, the people and building partnerships. With only ten years remaining to achieve these goals, countries are accelerating steps towards ending poverty, fighting inequalities, tackling climate change and ensuring that no one is left behind.  Every month, the United Nations places one of the 17 SDGs under the spotlight, highlighting its purpose, targets and criticality in advancing Agenda 2030. This month’s focus is on both SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger).

BY NATHALIE NDONGO-SEH

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic poses risk of a setback for sustainable development. According to the Sustainable Development Report released in June 2021, the global average SDG Index score for 2020 has decreased from the previous year for the very first time since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. This decline is driven to a large extent by increased poverty rates, food insecurity and unemployment following the outbreak of the COVID‑19 pandemic.

COVID-19 threatens to unravel the progress made towards ending poverty and hunger. According to the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, the coronavirus pandemic is pushing a further half a billion people, or eight (8) percent of the world’s population, into poverty; marking the first increase in poverty levels in over thirty years.

Current trends also suggest that nearly 840 million people will be hungry by 2030: an immense increase from 795 million in 2015, the year in which global Leaders adopted Agenda 2030.

Extreme hunger and malnutrition remain a barriers to sustainable development and create a trap from which people cannot easily escape. Hunger and malnutrition mean less productive individuals, who are more prone to disease and thus often unable to earn more and improve their livelihoods.

Man-made conflicts, climate change and economic downturns are the leading causes of poverty and hunger across the world. With more than a quarter of a billion people potentially at risk of starvation, immediate and amped up humanitarian efforts, including food relief, must be prioritised for the most vulnerable people in at-risk areas.

The pandemic has impacted all three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, and environmental.

Prosperity for all people, everywhere, can only be imagined with reformed food systems, reinvigorated economies, peacebuilding, and climate action, as well as ambitious efforts to achieve the SDGs.

The highest priority of every Government must remain the suppression of the pandemic. There can be no sustainable development and economic recovery while the pandemic is raging. A renewed focus must also be placed on reducing both hunger and poverty levels across the world immediately in line with the targets of SDGs 1 ‘No Poverty’ and 2 ‘Zero Hunger’.

 It is anticipated that, in sub-Saharan Africa alone, a further 26 million people will be pushed into poverty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The aftermath of the pandemic, reflected in emergent health crises, social and economic crises, threaten to reverse many of the gains made towards the SDGs across the continent.

According to the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2021 Report on the Long-Term Socio-Economic Impacts of COVID-19 Across Diverse African Contexts, reductions in international flows of trade and aid remittances, with exports reducing from -5.2 percent to -17.8 percent across the continent, severely impacted African economies.

These adverse economic impacts on countries have ultimately led to the stark increase in poverty levels across Africa. Nigeria alone, which was hit exceptionally hard by the pandemic, accounts for seven of out of 10 people moving into poverty in Africa.

In the Kingdom of Eswatini, the economy is estimated to have contracted by -3.1 percent in 2020, whilst annual inflation increased to 3.9 percent in 2020, from 2.6 percent in 2019. Unemployment has also risen, impacting the youth amongst whom 44 percent are unemployed.

With 58.9 percent of EmaSwati already living in poverty, immediate economic interventions are needed to ensure that the most vulnerable populations are not left behind in the recovery from the pandemic.

According to the Eswatini Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis Report 2021, a total 317,000 will require humanitarian support due to livelihoods that have been made to worse off and food shortages.  In 2020, the Government - through the National Disaster Management Agency - and support from the United Nations, had reached over 400 000 beneficiaries through cash transfers.

Children are most affected by poverty and hunger. Hunger is the leading cause of death of children under the age of five (5) in developing countries. In Eswatini. 5.8 percent of our children are malnourished, especially in the rural areas. It is essential that we protect and empower our children to live prosperous lives, through strong policies and immediate action.

The successful participation of Eswatini in the recent Food Systems Summit 2021 has helped the country to identify game changing pathways on how to shape the country’s food systems transformation agenda. Through the dialogues, Eswatini has shown commitment towards creating an enabling environment for sustainable and inclusive growth, especially in the agriculture and food industries where there is massive potential for socio-economic transformation while also strengthening resilience and adaptation to climate change.

These game changing solutions include (1) structuring of value chains through the development of commodity Sector Development Plan Agreements (SDPAs);  (2) improving public financing mechanism through the establishment of an Agriculture Development Fund; (3) improving coordination of players through the establishment of Agriculture Industry Associations for farmers, traders, service providers and processors;  (4) reviewing legislative and policy environment to liberalize investment and stimulate growth of infant industries;  (5) supporting integrated digital agri-data and information systems, as well as (6) up-scaling food security and nutrition programmes.

The UN in Eswatini is supporting an integrated school feeding programme where balanced and nutritious food can be accessed by children while linking local producers, especially smallholder farmers, to the supply chain.

In Eswatini, smallholder agriculture remains the backbone of rural livelihoods, with over 70 percent of the country’s total population; 60 percent of whom are women, relying on subsistence farming.

As a nation and continent, we hold the incredible potential to overcome hunger using local solutions. Combined with our collective resilience and agility, poverty and hunger should no longer be our present or our future, but our past. It is only in solidarity that we will overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, achieve SDGs 1 and 2, and indeed, Agenda 2030.

The United Nations continues to stand in solidarity with the Government and the people of Eswatini to contribute to a “just, prosperous and resilient Eswatini where nobody is left behind.”