BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 17. Over the past five years, the number of people facing severe food shortages has nearly tripled, said Martin Fricke, Director of the Global Office of the World Food Programme (WFP), TurkicWorld reports.
Speaking at the session titled "Efforts to safeguard health and food security in the face of a changing climate", at COP29 Parliamentary Meeting organized jointly by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and Azerbaijani Parliament, Fricke spoke about the latest data.
"In the last five years, the number of people suffering from acute food shortages increased from 135 million to 320 million. This almost threefold rise is a shocking reality, especially considering that after World War II, hunger rates were gradually decreasing. Although the global population was growing rapidly, the absolute number of those experiencing hunger declined until 2015," he said.
Fricke emphasized that the trend reversed, first stagnating and now consistently increasing. The main drivers of this surge are conflicts, climate change, and economic shocks.
"Conflicts have a devastating impact not only on those directly affected but also on the wider world, causing ripples of disruption with global repercussions," Frick added.
Vice President of the IPU from Azerbaijan, MP Sevil Mikayilova, is also participating in the COP29 Parliamentary Meeting.
The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will run until November 22, opened at the Baku Olympic Stadium on November 11.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system. The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for “Conference of Parties” and is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
A total of 198 countries are parties to the Convention. Unless otherwise decided by the parties, COP is held annually. The first COP event was held in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.
