Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent estimate she has made of the scale of the global increase in need for nutritional support as a result of recent rises in the prices of basic foodstuffs.

The global Integrated food security Phase Classification (IPC) estimates there will be over 223 million people living in crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity by the middle of 2022. This is up from 164 million at the end of 2020. Conflict is the primary cause of this increase in need, but it is being exacerbated by climate change and the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as global food price rises, compromising people's access to nutritious food. Our recently launched approach paper to Ending Preventable Deaths includes strengthening and transforming food systems to make safe and nutritious food accessible.

The UK's humanitarian response helps address the rising need in the short term. In 2021, the UK brokered the first-ever G7 Famine Prevention and Humanitarian Crises Compact to tackle this challenge, securing £5 billion in humanitarian assistance and resilience strengthening, helping to address people's immediate food insecurity in the 42 countries one-step from famine. FCDO have committed additional funding to deteriorating food crises since, including £50 million for Afghanistan and £76 million for Ethiopia, helping to tackle food insecurity and malnutrition.