Crisis conditions breed a virulent form of food insecurity, UN report says

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At least 22 countries in unique states of crisis are facing acute hunger issues, according to a new report by the United Nations food agency. These situations, however, are not due to sluggish development but result from what the UN deems "protracted crisis" conditions. Every country that made the list has played host to long-lasting political or civil conflict, been hit by recurring natural disasters, or both. The result? A deep brand of food insecurity that can't be alleviated through traditional interventions such as delivering food aid or improving access to markets. Instead, solving hunger problems in these countries is going to require creative international solutions.

Protracted crisis:"Those environments in which a significant proportion of the population is acutely vulnerable to death, disease and disruption of livelihoods over a prolonged period of time. The governance of these environments is usually very weak, with the state having a limited capacity to respond to, and mitigate, the threats to the population or provide adequate levels of protection."

The Food and Agriculture Organization has three categories of countries in protracted crisis: those that have experienced a "human-induced disaster"; those that have experienced "natural disaster"; and those that have been hit by the complexities of both. The proportion of people who are undernourished in protracted crisis countries is nearly three times as high as in other developing countries. They make up about 20 per cent of the world's undernourished - 166 million people.

Of the 22 countries on the list, all have experienced some kind of human-induced emergency (think civil conflict or political crisis). However, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo topped the FAO's list for the longest-running human-induced disasters. Both countries have had more than 15 years of civil war and political unrest. In each case, close to 20,000 UN troops were deployed on stabilization missions, yet instability endures. Of the Congo's 60 million people, more than 40 million are considered undernourished (69 per cent). In Sierra Leone, one-third of the country's 5.3 million people are undernourished.

Sixteen of the 22 crisis countries have been destabilized by a natural disaster such as flooding, drought or a hurricane. Haiti, the embattled island nation, has spent 11 of the past 15 years struggling to recover from natural disasters, which have destroyed the country's food system. In 1998, Hurricane Georges destroyed 80 per cent of Haiti's crops and killed 400 people. Six storms between 2004 and 2008 - three tropical storms and three hurricanes - caused flooding, landslides and thousands of deaths. In 2008 alone, storms caused more than $1-billion in damage to crops and other property. The country was still working to rebuild its agriculture sector when an earthquake struck last January, creating widespread death, homelessness and hunger.

Fifteen countries on the crisis list have experienced at least one incidence of combined human and natural disaster. Somalia, however, has had the most protracted experience with both. The country has been without a central government since 1991, prior to which there was a civil war. Conflict led to a major famine in the early 1990s. Since 2000, food crises have been localized, cropping up whenever populations flee zones of conflict. By 2009, more than three million people required immediate food assistance. Half of those were internally displaced people.