Tag: famine

Fridtjof Nansen: Polar Explorer turned Hunger Activist

May 10, 2026     By Lani Marquez

My husband and I recently visited Oslo, Norway, a beautiful city surrounded by the Oslo Fjord. One of the many very interesting museums we visited there was the Fram Polar Exploration Museum, which houses Norway’s most famous polar ship, the Fram, which sailed to both the North and South Poles.  The ship was designed by the Norwegian scientist Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) and launched in 1892.

Nansen had gained fame while pursuing a doctorate in Zoology when at the age of 27, he led a six-month expedition in 1888 to be the first to successfully cross Greenland on skis. He published two books about the journey with his own photographs and drawings, bringing him international fame. He then set his sights on being the first person to reach the North Pole.

Forcing ships through the Arctic ice to reach the North Pole had been tried and had failed many times in the 1800s. But in 1884, a Norwegian professor of meteorology, Henrik Mohn, had put forward a theory of an east-west current over the Arctic Ocean when the remains of the American expedition ship Jeannette were found by the Greenland coast after the ship had been crushed in the ice and had sunk sunk near the New Siberian Islands in 1881.  Nansen noted this and related it to the driftwood from Siberia that he had seen in the ice off Greenland.

Nansen conceived the plan of building a ship “so small and so strong as possible … that it was improbable that it could be destroyed by the ice”.  With such a ship he believed that he could drift over or very near to the North Pole.  In 1893, he and his crew prepared for a two-year journey in which they would let the Fram get frozen in the drift ice north of Siberia with the hope that the currents would carry the ship to reach the pole. While they did not reach the pole, the expedition returned home safely, and Nansen later sailed on the Fram on an expedition to reach the South Pole. He did not reach that goal either. (Robert Peary became the first person to reach the North Pole in 1909, and Roald Amundsen the South Pole in 1911.)

The story of Nansen’s polar expeditions was fascinating enough, but what really captivated me about this man was his humanitarian work.

Upon his return to Norway after his polar expeditions, Nansen became Norway’s first ambassador to Britain, and in 1917 led a Norwegian delegation to the United States to seek grain aid for Norway, since the country had depended on imports of grain from Germany and Russia before the first World War due to the very low proportion of its land that is arable and since most of the country is made up of mountains, forests, and glaciers.  Soon afterwards, horrified by the slaughter of World War I, Nansen became a champion for the League of Nations and attended the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 which helped shape it.

In 1920, the League of Nations appointed Nansen as High Commissioner in charge of the arrangements for the safe exchange of some 250,000 German and other foreign prisoners of war held by the Russians and some 200,000 Russian prisoners of war held in Germany.

At the same time as the prisoner exchange was being organized, the new Soviet Union was experiencing widespread famine. Nansen arranged for food, clothing, and medicines to be provided to the prisoners of war on Soviet territory and appealed for food aid for the Soviet Union. When Western governments refused to provide such aid to the Communist government, Nansen toured Europe and the United States to raise private donations to fund food for starving people in the Soviet Union.

He argued in the League of Nations for a £5 million loan to address the Russian famine, but his pleas were denied. Nansen estimated that 7 million people died in the Soviet Union as a result of the famine—more than twice the population of Norway at the time.  Nansen led relief efforts as High Commissioner for Relief in Russia for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and associated organizations, after the League of Nations declined official involvement due to distrust of the Soviet government. His work combined advocacy, logistics, fundraising, and on-the-ground aid distribution.

Through the Nansen Mission (involving Red Cross branches from multiple countries and groups like Save the Children), he helped set up free canteens at orphanages, railway stations, and factories. Field kitchens (hundreds deployed) provided daily rations like half a liter of soup and over 100 grams of bread per person. The effort served hundreds of millions of meals overall.

“The difficult is what takes a little time, the impossible is what takes a little longer”
— Fridtjof Nansen

After that, in 1922, the League of Nations appointed Nansen as its First High Commissioner for Refugees, the first High Commissioner for Refugees (what would later become UNHCR), where he continued to use his fame as a polar explorer and diplomat to call attention to the victims of famine and genocide in Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia. In 1922, Nansen received the Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless work for refugees in Europe after the war.

In his biography Nansen: The Explorer as Hero, Roland Huntford wrote, “Nansen is among the few really worthy winners of the Peace Prize, although he is probably the one who spent the shortest time earning it.”  Nansen spent the prize money on the purchase of tractors and the establishment of model farms to develop agricultural improvements in Russia.

Nansen’s legacy as a diplomat and hunger activist is worth remembering today.  His Nobel Prize recognized this work alongside his refugee initiatives. He approached it with the same determination he showed in polar exploration—practical, innovative, and relentless. His legacy influenced modern humanitarian organizations like UNHCR.

see also:  https://www.unhcr.org/il/en/about-fridtjof-nansen-unhcr-israel

Global Food Crisis Opinion in Irish Times

April 30, 2026

The Executive Director of Concern Worldwide, Dominic Crowley, published in the Irish Times to amplify the findings of the 2026 Global Report on Food Crises, noting how “in total, 266 million people in 47 countries/territories experienced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2025. Nearly one quarter of the population in these countries/territories are acutely food … This acute food insecurity is mostly concentrated in just ten countries.”

He adds that “reflecting our focus on food insecurity, Concern Worldwide works in eight of these countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the DRC, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Over the past twelve months, Concern has also supported a response to the March 2025 earthquake in a ninth country in the list – Myanmar.”

He writes:  “These figures could get even worse. Harsh reductions in aid and the ongoing conflict in Iran and the Gulf States threatens to push more vulnerable people into poverty and acute food insecurity….It is vital that governments and donors scale up aid and investment in resilient food systems and support safe humanitarian access to prevent further catastrophe.”

Also at:

https://www.threads.com/@concernworldwide/post/DXpDe8ilAvZ/humanitarian-and-development-funding-for-food-sectors-in-crisis-fell-last-year

https://x.com/Concern/status/2048869861472764152

India’s Conquest of Famine

April 19, 2026     In the weeks since Paul Ehrlich’s passing away, there have been many articles about the change that have occurred since his publication of the Population Bomb, where he warned about trends in risk of famine in India.

Indeed, one of the greatest stories in human history of overcoming food insecurity and famine has been India over the last 50 years. Not only has India grown in terms of food production, but it has diversified its economy, built infrastructure, and increased its GNP, which also supports improvements in long-term resilience.  In the 1990s, India turned away the food assistance provided in large quantities by the US Government’s Food for Peace, and India became itself a food aid donor to other countries.

In the late 1960s, India began intensively experimenting with ways to improve yields of key food crops, particularly wheat.  A few Indian scientists played an historic, important role in feeding this country which today has more people than any other.  The most important was M.S. Swaminathan, an unassuming man who, in his own gentle way, revolutionized India’s agricultural sector.

Swaminathan started out in 1947 working on plant breeding at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi. Swaminathan collaborated with US plant breeder Norman Borlaug touring India, breeding Mexican wheat with Japanese varieties. This new crop produced high yields of good quality.  In 1964 he earned funds to plant demonstration plots which convinced Indian farmers to experiment with its use.  Further experimentation led to wheat varieties which by 1968 increased wheat production to 17 million tons.

Swaminathan’s lifelong commitment to transparency pushed him to establish various systems of accountability of the institutions he headed; therefore, he placed the entire international rice collection under the supervision of an international rice board even though it was already a part of IRRI.  Swaminathan never tired of crediting that the seeds of the green revolution in India were actually sown far back in 1949 in the fields of the Central Rice Research Institute in Cuttack, India long before Norman Borlaug came to India.  Working with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, he established a commission for plant-based genetic resources to address issues related to the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources for food and agriculture. This included plants, animals, and aquatic organisms.  The commission’s focus was on the management of biodiversity.  In the 1980s, Swaminathan led, as Director General, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Here he shone as a brilliant and dedicated scientist, an excellent leader, and kind-hearted.  Despite occasional setbacks, he persevered in promoting international cooperation in the utilization and conservation of genetic resources.  His vision extended beyond yield per hectare. He was a prophet of sustainability long before it became a buzzword of the 21st century. From championing greater participation of women in agriculture to espousing ecological balance, from advancing research in Russian attics to promoting sustainable coastal farming, from advocating for tribal food security to establishing gene banks for endangered crops, his canvas was vast, and his brush precise. Swami Nathan was generous and humane, embodying the best and noblest of the India into which he was born and by which he was shaped.

As shown in the graph at right, food production in India has more than kept pace with population growth due to ongoing improvements in applications of scientific methods. In these same last fifty years, India’s population hasalmost tripled, from 520,000,000 to about 1.5 billion today.

India’s agricultural geography has shifted from a northwest “Green Revolution core” (1970s) to a much more broad-based and increasingly central/eastern growth pattern (last decade).  In the 1970s, increases in production were largely in the Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh.   More recently, Indian States with the strongest increases in food production:

    • * Madhya Pradesh – often cited as India’s fastest-growing agricultural state in the 2010s
    • * Chhattisgarh – rapid expansion in rice production and procurement
    • * Jharkhand – gains from irrigation and diversification
    • * Bihar & Eastern Uttar Pradesh – improvements in rice, maize, and horticulture.

The elimination of famine has not meant that there is no malnutrition in India.  Fifty years ago half of children were stunted (low height per age) from undernutrition, while today 1 in three are.

Meanwhile, rate of wasting malnutrition (as measured by weight for height) has remained stubbornly high over the last 50% years, by many estimates stuck in the range of 17-18%.

The government’s most current estimate for the national prevalence of wasting (low weight for height) among children under five in India for 2025 is estimated the 5.4% though estimates from prior years are closer to 18% among children.  Wasting malnutrition also varies across different areas.  For instance, the Union Territory of Lakshadweep reported the highest wasting rate at 11.6%, followed by Bihar (9.31%) and Madhya Pradesh (8.2%).

Much of the growth of production in India has been facilitated by increases in application of synthetic fertilizers. This is relevant today because, as reported yesterday, India’s food economy is seriously dependent upon fertilizers from the Middle East that are now blockaded and will be increasingly expensive, which may challenge food production in India this year.

Read more:   M.S. Swaminathan in conversation with Nitya Rao: The Ethics and Politics of Science, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation Centre for Research on Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development, 2014.

Charles C. Mann, The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 2018).

Priyambada Jayakumar, M S Swaminathan: The Man Who Fed India,  HarperCollins India, September 10, 2025

Further Increases of Starvation in Darfur, Sudan

April 12, 2026

The arid, poor, western region of Sudan, called Darfur, has been a complex emergency for twenty-three years, with mass displacement and an increasing problem of starvation and malnutrition.  Aid to prevent starvation is prevented by the inability of aid agencies to reach those in need, due to violence. A two-year siege of the regional capital of El-Fasher reflected the unending war between the two combatant groups, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces).

Using themal imaging, the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at Yale University has recently published evidence of attacks against civilians Darfur.  Yales’s new HRL report provides detail of targeted burning, destruction and razing of 41 agrarian villages northwest of El-Fasher in darfur.  These communities were ethnically Zaghawa who produce food for the region, but following attacks, they halted agricultural work.  The Yale lab report finds:  “decreases in agricultural activity during the growing period following the razing of communities assessed through year-on-year changes in land use/land cover.”

The Yale lab and this report use remote sensing to measure changes in food security in non-permissive environments.  Satellite imagery of farming communities are shown in the photo at the top-left and at the map at right.

Oona Hathaway has called attention to famine as a war crime in Darfur, western Sudan.  “We conclude that the new Yale HRL report provies compeelling evidence relevant to multiple RSF starvation crises in the vicinity of El-Fasher, including war crimes, crimes against humanity…. Well over 11 million people have been displaced by the conflict, which has caused desperate levels of food insecurity, including multiple determinations of famine.”   She continues, “the fighting and the parties’ well-documented obstruction of humanitarian relief have, for extended periods, made the, made the transportation of food and aid to places that desperately need it nearly impossible.”

The economic and livelihood implications of the crisis have spread beyond the agricultural sector.  “Nearly 70 percent of bank branches have closed and ceased operation in conflict zones across Sudan. Bank closures, limited cash liquidity, and high transfer commission rates ranging from 10 to 30 percent have contribu ted to financial strain and limits any ability to sell and purchase food commodities, exacerbating food insecurity.”

Several locations in Darfur report acute malnutrition rates above 50%, which is very high.  Around 800,000 childhood cases of servere malnutrition, the most dangerous and deadly form of malnutrition, are expected nationwide this year in The Sudan.

Food aid does not benefit from a stable pipeline to Darfur, some food coming from Chad.  Much of the food is brought in by the World Food Programme.  NGOs responding include the Norwegian Refugee Council, CARE, Food for the Hungry and Concern Worldwide.

Following the confirmed spread of famine in North Darfur, Action Against Hunger (AAH or ACF) is operating directly in regional hunger hotspots. Their teams provide emergency health and nutrition interventions, alongside water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programs that are critical for preventing malnutrition-related diseases like cholera.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has provided food and cash, and health care for livestock, and rehabilitated water infrastructure (e.g., hand pumps in rural North, Central, and West Darfur) benefiting tens of thousands; conducted cholera response campaigns with chlorination and hygiene promotion in Tawila (North Darfur) and Al Daein (East Darfur), reaching over 117,000 people and distributed water filters.

See:

 

Paul Ehrlich, Who Warned of Famines, Passes Away

Scientist, educator and global citizen, Paul Ehrlich passed away at the age of 93 on March 13, 2026.   As professor from 1959 to 2016 at Stanford University, he sponsored the first course offered about international hunger and life-saving aid, consistent with his life-long efforts to mitigate suffering from famine, food insecurity and environmental crises.

In a series of publications, Ehrlich called the general public’s attention to the reality of famines around the world. His writings, often with his wife Anne Ehrlich, emphasized the dramatic increase in the number of people exposed to food insecurity and hunger as the world population quadrupled during his lifetime, an observation largely ignored by other major analysts and politicians.

The success of their 1968 book, The Population Bomb, resonated with a public increasingly aware in the 1950s and 1960s of exponential population growth. Demand for his views was reflected in his more than 20 appearances as a guest on NBC’s The Tonight Show.

Some obituaries have denied the recurrence of famine, turning a blind eye to the hundreds of millions of people affected in recent decades by famines in Mali, Sudan, Haiti, Ethiopia, Yemen, Cambodia, India, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, and other countries since the publication of The Population Bomb which warned of the threats of future famines.  Critics of Ehrlich pretend away the fact that in the decades since its population, over 300 million young children have died from malnutrition in poorer countries and that famines continue to occur in still-growing populations such as South Sudan, Nigeria, Mozambique Somalia, and Kenya.  Remarkably, some obituaries about Ehrlich suggest that malnutrition has not been a problem in the world, despite the fact that an estimated four to five billion people have been seriously hungry and malnourished during the decades since Ehrlich’s warning.

Fortunately, the frequency and severity of very large famines have declined, in part because of Ehrlich’s warnings, which helped spur the U.S. government to create the Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) in the 1980s. This system has helped prevent famines through timely food and humanitarian assistance and is still used today by the U.S. Department of State.

The book also helped galvanize support for women’s reproductive rights, education, and microfinance initiatives, contributing to declines in fertility and more stable population growth in many countries. Governments, including that of the United States, increasingly supported programs to reduce child mortality, which in turn enabled women across Asia and Africa to choose smaller family sizes. For instance, in the 1960s, the average woman in Asia or Africa gave birth to seven children, whereas today the average is three to four.

Ehrlich’s environmental warnings have been less successful, however, in preventing species extinction and habitat loss.  Since his book, millions of species have gone extinct at rates up to 1,000 times the natural background level, largely due to human encroachment on land and marine habitats. As Ehrlich warned decades ago, the 2024 Living Planet Report documents that monitored wildlife populations have declined by an average of 73% since 1970.  This loss is often described as a “sixth mass extinction,” driven primarily by habitat destruction, followed by overharvesting, invasive species, disease, and climate change.

As Ehrlich documented, carbon dioxide emissions have increased by over 115% since 1968.  To feed a growing population, humans have converted vast tracts of forests and grasslands into farmland. Over the past 50 years, agriculture and land-use change have accounted for roughly 23% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The world has also lost about 420 million hectares of forest since 1990 due to land conversion.

Ehrlich spent a career studying the science of population dynamics, including coevolution and population biology. In his 1964 paper “Butterflies and Plants: A Study in Coevolution” (with Peter Raven), he argued that plants and herbivorous insects drive each other’s evolution—an idea that helped launch the modern field of coevolution. He also conducted decades-long field studies on checkerspot butterflies (Euphydryas editha bayensis), examining population dynamics, genetic structure, and the effects of climate and habitat fragmentation. His work documented patterns of local extinction and recolonization, providing empirical support for the concept of meta-populations and shaping modern conservation science.

Ehrlich helped popularize the notion of ecosystem services, the benefits people receive from nature, such as pollination, water purification, and soil fertility. He used this framework to quantify how human demography and consumption threaten the functioning of ecosystems.

As the Peter Bing professor at Stanford University, Ehrlich  founded Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology and has worked on endangered‑species policy, countryside biogeography (making human‑altered landscapes hospitable to biodiversity), and cultural evolution of environmental ethics.

Over his long career he mentored scores of students at Stanford, cultivating in them the same blend of scientific rigor and moral urgency that defined his own work.

His textbook Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, coauthored with Anne Ehrlich and John Holdren, is a comprehensive and still-relevant compendium. It provides a foundational overview of ecological principles, resource constraints, and environmental systems. The book explores how population growth, industrial agriculture, pesticide use, and pollution strain natural systems, and it outlines pathways for social, political, and economic adaptation. Ultimately, it frames humanity’s environmental challenges as requiring urgent and coordinated global action.

Like his publications, Ehrlich’s lectures were intellectually wide-ranging and provocative, integrating history, global trends, politics, and ecology. Unlike many academics, he was deeply committed to addressing hunger and alleviating human suffering.

Other readings:

Stanford University:  https://humsci.stanford.edu/feature/biologist-and-environmentalist-paul-ehrlich-has-died

Understanding the fragility of our planetary home: The legacy of Paul Ehrlich

Nature Journal:  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00939-5

Paul Ehrlich: A Tribute

– by Steve Hansch, board member, World Hunger Education Service

 

Threat of Child Malnutrition in Iran Amid U.S.–Iran Conflict

February 28, 2026       The U.S.–Iran war that began today, 28 February 2026, threatens to sharply worsen malnutrition among children under five in low-income urban neighborhoods of strike zones (Tehran, Isfahan, Kermanshah) and in rural border provinces (e.g., Sistan-Baluchestan and Kurdistan) that already experience high malnutrition rates.

Iran, with a total population of 93 million people, has 7 ½ million children under five years of age, which is more children than Germany, the UK, Canada, Iraq, Syria, Italy, Turkey, or France.

Over the last few decades the occurrence of childhood stunting (a form of long-term malnutrition) and of wasting (short-term) malnutrition have declined in Iran, reflected by the government’s attention to treating malnutrition.   However, studies in southern Iran from 2018 to 2023 show a significant increase in underweight and wasting among young children, with the annual % change of severe wasting increasing by 8.9%.  Nationally, the rate of wasting has averaged 4.2%, which is medium for regional and peer countries.  Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoHME) manages child malnutrition programs through primary healthcare centers, hospitals, and nutrition initiatives.  Treatment follows protocols similar to WHO/UNICEF guidelines for community-based management of acute malnutrition, which emphasize outpatient therapeutic care using Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for severe malnutrition.

The most widespread micronutrient deficiency diseases in Iran include vitamin D (rickets), iron (anemia), vitamin A, and zinc deficiency.  Iran addresses these through national programs (e.g., supplementation, fortification of foods like flour with iron/folate, salt iodization, and targeted UNICEF-supported interventions in high-risk provinces), but challenges persist due to economic factors, dietary habits, and regional disparities.

Even before the current war threats, Iran’s food economy was struggling under the weight of international sanctions and mismanagement.  The conflict will further reduce Iranian families’ ability to afford food.  In fact, the protests that broke out in December 2025 were in part over increased food prices after the rial plunged against the U.S. dollar.   There has been criticism by Iranians that their government has failed to present a clear emergency response plan, leaving citizens to fend for themselves. 

Iran produces much of its own wheat, dates, barley, rice, pistachios, walnuts, citrus fruits, and saffron.  It imports rice, cooking oils, soybeans, sugar, tea, and dairy.  The fighting will disrupt Iran’s ability to import food commodities, tightening supply.  Agricultural supply chains, transportation networks, storage facilities, and water infrastructure are all vulnerable.  Damaged roads and ports will impede food distribution across the country.

Urban bombardment now underway in Tehran and other major cities will displace families.  Reuters today reports that Iranians have fled cities in search of safety, rushed to stock up on food, and formed long queues at fuel stations as attacks by the United States and Israel spread fear and panic throughout the country.  Iranian government messages have explicitly encouraged people to leave Tehran and other targeted cities to avoid attacks.  This kind of internal displacement typically leads to overcrowded towns, strain on services, and informal settlements on the periphery of safer cities.

Internally displaced populations lose access to stable food sources, income, and caregiving routines.  Young children are disproportionately harmed by the disruption of feeding practices and by unhygienic displacement conditions that compound malnutrition with infectious disease.

Iran is known as a country that takes care of refugees.  Estimates vary, but UNHCR and other agencies report roughly some 3.8 million refugees and people in refugee-like situations in Iran as of 2025, overwhelmingly from Afghanistan and a smaller number from Iraq and other countries.

Iran has been prone to disasters due to large earthquakes and famines.  As well, in February 1972, a week-long series of storms  brought up to 26 feet (8 meters) of snow in rural areas of western Iran which buried over 200 villages, killing thousands.

Iran also suffered severe famines in 1870-72 and during the First and Second World Wars.  The most recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization report about Iran (November 2025) notes that persistent dry weather has hampered winter wheat plantings, leading to an estimated cereal production nearly 10% below the five-year average in 2025.  It found that wheat prices in Tehran had risen 50% and rice prices had tripled, compared to the previous year.

Iran has a fairly extensive domestic social protection system by regional standards, though it has faced significant strains in recent years.  The Imam Khomeini Relief Committee (IKRC) is one of the largest non-governmental charitable organizations in the world by some measures. It operates under government supervision and provides cash transfers, food assistance, healthcare subsidies, and vocational training to millions of low-income Iranians. It draws on religious endowments (waqf) and public donations alongside state funding.   The State Welfare Organization (SWO) handles a broader range of social services including disability support, elderly care, and assistance for vulnerable families.

International aid agencies help Iran in disasters, including the Red Cross.  The national Red Crescent society of Iran, part of the global IFRC network, has deep roots in domestic disaster relief, rescue, and healthcare operations.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been working in Iran since the late 1970s.  The ICRC provides humanitarian services related to conflict-affected populations, health, and protection.

Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors without Borders) has been operating health programs in Iran.  Many other international NGOs have been hesitant to work in Iran, where the government distrusts Western organizations.  An exception has been Relief International (RI), which was founded in 1990 following the catastrophic Manjil–Rudbar earthquake in northern Iran.

The convergence of active conflict, pre-existing economic strain, and disrupted supply chains creates a compounding crisis for Iran’s most vulnerable — particularly children under five.  International humanitarian organizations face their own obstacles operating in Iran, given longstanding government suspicion of Western NGOs. The children most at risk — those in strike zones like Tehran and Isfahan, and those in already-malnourished border provinces like Sistan-Baluchestan — are precisely the populations least able to weather further disruption to food access, clean water, and caregiving. Without rapid and coordinated humanitarian response, the malnutrition crisis that predates this conflict will deepen sharply, with consequences that will outlast the fighting itself.

 

S. Hansch, WHES Board

 

 

 

 

 

Concern for Sudan

World Hunger Education Service made its annual anti-hunger award, including our recommendation and a cash grant to Concern Worldwide for its food and nutrition assistance in the worst famine crisis in the world, The Sudan, where it manages health clinics, case finding of children with malnutrition and building household resilience amid an intractable civil war. Their operations reach nearly half a million people across several states, including West and Central Darfur, West and South Kordofan, and the Red Sea State.  Concern Worldwide has been operating in Sudan since 1985, with programs adapted to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis stemming from the conflict that escalated in April 2023.

Concern’s assistance in the last year included over 11 tons of medical items and 56 metric tonnes of pharmaceuticals and equipment in recent deliveries.   Nutrition programs include distributing 11 tons of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) to treat childhood malnutrition, addressing the loss of Sudan’s domestic RUTF production capacity due to conflict damage. Overall, nearly 480,000 people received support through these health and nutrition efforts in the first 10 months of 2025, with programs continuing into 2026 amid funding shortfalls highlighted by Concern’s leadership.

To mitigate long-term impacts like poverty, Concern integrates food security, livelihoods support, nutrition, WASH, and disaster risk reduction.  Their aid includes agricultural training, provision of inputs, and village savings and loan associations in Kordofan communities, adapted to the conflict environment. These programs aim to build resilience while addressing immediate needs from the crisis, which has left over 24 million people in Sudan requiring aid.   In 2024, Concern treated 8,312 children for severe acute malnutrition (SAM).  In addition, in 2024, over 12,000 individuals received in-kind food assistance, and 5,875 households were provided with multi-purpose cash assistance totaling approximately €1.2 million.

Concern Worldwide began in 1968, when a small group of Irish volunteers launched an emergency response to the famine in Biafra, Nigeria.  Today, Concern reaches over 30 million people in emergencies.

See:    https://www.concern.net/what-we-do/health-and-nutrition

See Hunger Notes’ previous interview with Dominic MacSorley, former CEO of Concern at:  https://www.worldhunger.org/interview-with-dominic-macsorley-former-ceo-of-concern-worldwide/

Donations from the US can go to:  https://concernusa.org/

https://concernusa.org/search-results/?q=sudan&page=1

Mali Faces Famine

As of early 2026, Mali continues to face a deep nutritional crisis. While there has been long-term incremental progress in reducing chronic malnutrition (stunting), acute malnutrition (wasting) remains at emergency levels, particularly in the conflict-affected northern and central regions.  Mali is among six countries at highest risk of famine or catastrophic hunger in early 2026.  The UN estimates 5.1 million people are in need.

Because of the conflict there have been more than 800 incidents of access denial of aid to people in need in 2025, which has included violence against aid workers.  Mali  borders the Sahara desert and is prone to drought and malnutrition.

Acute malnutrition among children nationwide averages 11.6%, which is well above the African regional average of 6%.  Within Mali, crises areas include Ménaka (22.2%) and Gao (19.3%), where malnutrition rates have surged far past the WHO’s 15% emergency threshold.

An estimated 1.5 million children are acutely malnourished, with over 314,000 cases of Severe Acute Malnutrition, which is the most life-threatening form.

Militant activity and “blockade tactics” in the North and Center have disrupted local markets and restricted access to agricultural fields, making food both scarce and unaffordable.

See:  https://www.fao.org/4/t2860t/t2860t02.htm

 

Book Classic: The Challenge of Famine, Recent Experience and Lessons Learned by John Osgood Field

The anthology edited by John Osgood Field, The Challenge of Famine, Recent Experience Lessons Learned” remains one of the premier books about predicting and measuring famine ever published.  Field, until his retirement a professor of food studies at Tufts University School of Nutrition, published this in 1993 with Kumarian Press, arrayed a dozen key scholars of famine who including Joel Charney, Mary Anderson, Dirk Stryker, Peter Cutler, Jack Shepard and others.  Field wrote the introduction, the first chapter, and the final summary chapter.  The book is as appropriate to read today as when it was published as it hones in on the ambiguity of when to say that there is a famine.

Field writes that when in full bloom, famine is dramatically clear to the naked eye.  However, he writes, how to recognize famine before it becomes obvious is the dilemma around which much of the book revolves. This is relevant at a time when there are hot debates over which parts of Sudan may or may not be in famine, which parts of Gaza may or may not be in famine with data sets pointing in different directions as to the answer.

Field clarifies that famine is a slow onset disaster, which does not happen suddenly, but has a lengthy gestation. He makes the key point that notwithstanding the complexity of famine and the multiple factors underlying it, the principal indicators are few and manageable. In other words, famine may be caused by different processes, but there are fewer cases, but the data for recognizing famine are fewer. The dilemma facing early warning is that it is very difficult, perhaps impossible to be definitive, clear and compelling about something that does not yet exist. Ambiguity is inherent in famine prediction.

This means that political decision making will come into play. Early warning does not eliminate the role of politics. Both political early warning and administrative early warning have better track records in inducing early decision making and response than early warning systems that are purely technical.

Writing about the famine codes in India, Field dissects detection and response with responsibility of the same individuals who typically were district level officials.

Contributor William Torrey reflects on community famine surveillance in Sudan, which is very timely in 2025.  Torrey dives into Darfur, including about participation by locals in Al-Fasher who were also involved in relief work, early warning, and famine response.

In his chapter about Oxfam America’s disaster response, Joel Charney mentions that honest reflection and self-evaluation are not exactly hallmarks of the voluntary agency community.  “According to their own public relations pieces, it seems that the agencies always do well regardless of the grave mistakes in judgment that journalists and other independent investigators continually uncover.”  He reviews the 1978 famine in Cambodia.

Mary B. Anderson and Peter Woodrow draw on their extensive case studies of disasters in many countries for key lessons, such as how disaster victims have important capacities which are not destroyed in disaster and therefore should be built on.  They argue that outside aid to these victims must be provided in ways that recognize and support these capacities.

In his chapter, Jack Shepard summarizes his research into American assistance to Ethiopia during the 1981-1985 famine period.  He recounts hos U.S. food aid became an important part of foreign policy in the 1970s and 1980s at a time of increasing American food production and increasing malnutrition around the world.  Shepherd recounts the evolution of aid policies including destabilizing Marxist regimes.  “Nowhere is the Reagan policy more clear than in its treatment of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the official relief and development agency of the American Roman Catholic Community.  From 1982 through 1984 the administration deliberately delayed its response to emergency food aid requests for Ethiopia by CRS.”  In time, US food aid ramped up largely cross-border through Sudan into Tigray and Eritrea (fighting against the government of Ethiopia).

The most distinctive chapter was by Peter Cutler:  “Responses to Famine and Why They Are Allowed to Happen.”   Among Cutler’s observations is that rural famine victims are likely to become a political issue only if their case is taken up by influential urban elites, such as university students or the press.  He catalogs various contradictions in our aid system.

For instance, NGOs are in a contradictory position with regard to famine control.  On the one hand, their field staff are among the best informed of all actors operating in a famine zone, yet at the same time they are the least likely to challenge the system or influence governments. This is because NGOs are highly vulnerable. Cutler concludes the professional relief and development agencies will avoid the risks of challenging donors and the host governments when famine breaks out among unpopular groups of victims.

Publisher:  Kumarian Press, West Hartford Connecticut.  ISBN:  1-56549-019-3

Hunger Increases Even Further in The Sudan

August 28, 2025:  Aid agencies estimate that malnutrition in Sudan increases in scale, depth and scope.  Much of the reporting comes from the far western region of Darfur, where, between January and May 2025, North Darfur saw a 46% increase in children admitted for SAM treatment at health centers compared to the same period in 2024 — with over 40,000 children treated in just that region.

As a result of 2 1/2 years of civil war, over 14 million Sudanese have been displaced by violence, both internally and across borders.  In the largest camp for displaced persons, Zamzam in North Darfur,  Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported devastating malnutrition rates — as high as 29–30% acute malnutrition, and high mortality (e.g., one child dying every two hours.  Similarly,  Save the Children reported a nearly fourfold increase in severe acute malnutrition cases seen in one South Kordofan clinic from June 2023 to June 2024, with 1,457 children admitted in June 2024 alone.

Though access by international organizations to children in this large, rural country is limited, UNICEF estimates that some 3.2 million children under 5 may have  acute malnutrition in 2025, including about 770,000 experiencing Severe Acute Malnutrition, meaning they are extremely wasted.

The U.N.’s advisory body about famine, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported 25.6 million people in the Sudan are food insecure, and of those, 8.5 million are in Emergency (Famine degree Phase 4) and another 755,000 are in Catastrophe/Famine (Famine degree Phase 5).

Humanitarian access is greatly constrained, with persistent fighting preventing deliveries of food or supplies into many areas, notably in Darfur, Khartoum, and regions with large numbers of internally displaced person.

Concern Worldwide is supporting 81 health facilities across Sudan, particularly in West and Central Darfur, treating children under five for acute malnutrition, with a focus on delivering ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF).  Despite the destruction of Sudan’s only RUTF factory in 2023, Concern has secured and delivered 10 metric tons of RUTF to vulnerable communities. In 2024, they reached nearly 484,000 people with lifesaving health and nutrition support.