section_path: Food insecurity
section_name: Food insecurity
paragraph_text: Food insecurity
  
  Unlike the Great Recession, it is expected that the COVID-19 recession will also affect the majority of developing nations. On 21 April, the United Nations World Food Programme warned that a famine "of biblical proportions" was expected in several parts of the world as a result of the pandemic. The release of 2020 Global Report on Food Crises indicated that 55 countries were at risk, with David Beasley estimating that in a worst-case scenario "about three dozen" countries would succumb to famine. This is particularly an issue in several countries affected by war, including the Yemeni Civil War, the Syrian civil war, insurgency in the Maghreb and the Afghanistan Conflict and occurs on a background of the 2019 locust infestations in East Africa. Nestlé, PepsiCo, the United Nations Foundation and farmers' unions have written to the G20 for support in maintaining food distributions to prevent food shortages. It is estimated that double the number of people "will go hungry" when compared to pre-pandemic levels.
  
  The United Nations forecasts that the following member states will have significant areas with poor food security categorised as under "stress" (IPC phase 2), "crisis" (IPC phase 3), "emergency" (IPC phase 4) or "critical emergency" (IPC phase 5) in 2020:
  
  It also raises alerts around:
  
  On 9 July, Oxfam released a report warning that "12,000 people per day could die from COVID-19 linked hunger" by 2021, estimating an additional 125 million people are at risk of starvation due to the pandemic. In particular the report highlighted "emerging epicentres" of hunger, alongside famine-stricken areas, including areas in Brazil, India, Yemen and the Sahel.