WFP Acting Executive Director Statement on Conflict and Hunger
NEW YORK – Conflict is the leading driver of hunger around the world. It is not only a consequence of conflict, it is increasingly being used as a weapon.
When the Security Council adopted Resolution 2417 in 2018, it was a commitment to break the vicious cycle between hunger and conflict. Today, that cycle is accelerating. Consequences of conflict are now being transmitted thousands of miles through interconnected economies and trading systems, across borders and seas.
From Sudan and Gaza to Somalia, Yemen and beyond, the warning lights are flashing. When families cannot put food on the table, they face impossible choices: starve, move or rebel. And the cycle repeats itself.
I saw this urgency first-hand in Somalia last week, where families displaced by conflict and drought are again facing catastrophic hunger. Waiting for a famine declaration is a total failure of duty.
The global food system is now exposed to shocks that travel further and faster – from chokepoints in the Black Sea to the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz. Disruptions to fuel, fertilizer, grain, shipping and humanitarian supply routes mean higher food prices, smaller harvests and fewer meals for children thousands of miles away. The Council has the tools to act on these risks. It must use them.
Protecting civilians, safeguarding the farms, markets, ports, roads and maritime corridors that keep food moving, and ensuring safe, unimpeded humanitarian access are not optional; they are imperative to give hundreds of millions of people a path away from hunger, violence – back to peace and stability. They are also obligations under international humanitarian law and essential to international peace and security.
The World Food Programme (WFP) stands firmly behind the Secretary-General’s call for Resolution 2417 to be implemented consistently and in full.
WFP will continue to do everything possible to reach people caught in the crossfire as it adapts to a diminishing humanitarian funding landscape. But humanitarians cannot substitute political action.
Today must mark a renewed commitment by Member States to uphold international humanitarian law, protect humanitarian workers, keep food and aid flowing, fund lifesaving operations, and pursue the political solutions that remain the best protection against hunger.