The novel coronavirus has overwhelmed public health systems and jolted economies around the world. Now it is poised to spark a global hunger crisis as well. After decades of progress in the battle against poverty and hunger, the job losses, supply chain disruptions, and other economic dislocations caused by the pandemic threaten to push millions of people from food security into food insecurity—and toward outright starvation. International institutions and their member states must act decisively to prevent that outcome. Otherwise, they risk setting in motion a costly and chaotic era of rising hunger and poverty.
In April, I warned the United Nations Security Council of a coming “hunger pandemic.” The effects of coronavirus-related economic crises will be felt nearly everywhere. While nations will, appropriately, first consider the interests of their own people, a world with no common purpose is a world that will invite many problems. Our common purpose should be defeating this virus, preventing it from causing a hunger pandemic, and building on the gains against poverty and hunger that have defined the bulk of the last 30 years.
