Kenya among 30 countries suffering from hunger globally

Kenya is among 30 countries in the world suffering from serious hunger. 

The Global Hunger Index 2020 report has ranked Kenya position 84 out of 117 countries that are suffering from serious hunger. The report was released on Wednesday.

Kelvin Shingles, country director of Welthungerhilfe, said this position identifies Kenya as still suffering from a level of hunger that is serious.

“The report reveals that Kenya is not on track to achieve zero hunger by 2030. In fact, Kenya's 2020 GHI score indicates that progress on reducing hunger and undernutrition has stalled” he said.

This trend does not yet reflect the impact of current crises and strong predictors for increasing hunger, such as the locust infestation, more frequent and severe climate-induced disasters, or the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.

Welthungerhilfe produces the Global Hunger Index every year to track hunger levels around the world.

According to the index, 23 per cent of the Kenyan population is undernourished, but the country increased by 18 more points towards low severity of hunger.

Shingles said the situation is expected to rise as the climate crisis, the coronavirus pandemic and the locust outbreak made 2020 a fateful year in the fight against hunger.

“With a high percentage of Kenyans living without access to social security, the current crises are being felt severely across the country. Without social safety nets, coping strategies are being depleted with more and more people requiring humanitarian assistance.,” he said.

“All this circumstance will have a considerable impact on food security in the immediate future, and the situation will likely worsen from April 2021 onwards.” 

Agriculture PS Hamadi Boga said over 1.5 million Kenyans especially in the ASAL areas are facing an acute food shortage.

Boga said for the country to be food secure, food must be available, quality, accessible to the population and must be affordable.

“Food must be diverse and we are working towards increasing productivity and expanding production. We need to increase the country’s annual maize production to 64 million bags by 2030 from the current 42 million bags of maize,” the PS said.

He said the focus is that food is a basic and fundamental human right and measures must be taken to find durable solutions for those who go hungry daily.

“We need to action and prioritise policies and programmes that increase productivity, food security, nutrition, and resilience of small-scale farmers and pastoralists. Given the large proportion of the population that is dependent on pastoralism and rain-fed agriculture and the vulnerability of these groups to the impacts of climate change and now desert locusts, collective action is vital for Kenya’s future,” he said.

The Global Hunger Index is a tool designed to measure and track hunger at global, regional and national levels to assess the progress and setbacks in combating hunger.

It also reveals the hungriest country in the world, a result which can be used to explore the main drivers of, and possible solutions to global hunger.

-Edited by Sarah Kanyara