THE Philippines must invest to improve its data system as a tool to prevent food crises as it is currently blind on the extent and degree of food insecurity in the country, according to the 2020 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC).
In its 2020 iteration, the GRFC said 16 countries, including the Philippines, were omitted in the report due to lack of data to provide an estimate of their food insecurity.
The other 15 countries that were not included in the analysis due to lack of data are Bolivia, Comoros, Congo, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Djibouti, Syrian refugees in Egypt and Jordan, Eritrea, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nepal, Venezuelan migrants in Peru, Tajikistan and displaced populations in Algeria/Western Sahara.
Due to this, the GRFC made an “urgent call” for countries to “improve” their “data analytics” to assess the magnitude of food insecurity in their population.
The GRFC pointed out “data has been missing for seven countries,” which are Congo, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, since the report was launched in 2017.
“If governments, humanitarian actors and development agencies are to prevent food crises from getting worse in both severity and magnitude, they need reliable, timely and accessible data and analysis to inform early warning and early action,” the report, which was published on April 21, read.
The GRFC recommended that the humanitarian and development community must partner with countries that have “limited data” to address gaps in data-collection systems.
The report added that the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for countries to invest in “technology-savvy monitoring systems and predictive analysis,” to have a prompt and reliable basis for policy-making.
“The data community must adapt its tools to provide timely, reliable measurement of the impact of Covid-19 on food security and make the data easy to access, interpret and use by policymakers to enable them to make evidence-based decisions,” it read.
The report revealed that there are about 135 million food-insecure people in crisis across 55 countries and territories that it assessed and analyzed. The latest figure is the highest in the four years of the GRFC’s existence.
“This increase also reflected the inclusion of additional countries and areas within some countries. When comparing the 50 countries that were in both the 2019 and the 2020 reports, the population in crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) rose from 112 to 123 million,” the report read.
In his foreword in the report, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said countries must “redouble” their efforts to “defeat hunger and malnutrition” during this time of “immense global challenges, from conflicts to climate shocks to economic instability.”
“This is crucial for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and building a more stable and resilient world,” Guterres said.
“We have the tools and the know-how. What we need is political will and sustained commitment by leaders and nations,” Guterres added.
The annual GRFC, which is led by the Global Network Against Food Crises, is the result of a joint assessment of acute food insecurity situations around the world by 16 partners, which include the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, International Food Policy Research Institute, World Food Programme, European Union, United States Agency for International Development, and United Nations Children’s Fund, among others.
Image credits: Roy Domingo