Inside Geneva: drought and food insecurity

Millions of people are going hungry due to severe droughts in the Sahel and in East Africa. The Inside Geneva podcast looks at how the international community should help, now and in the future.

Podcast host Imogen Foulkes is joined in this episode by climate and humanitarian experts.

“Two boys, twins, they’re one year old. They’re severely malnourished, the children and the mother. And she walked 160 kilometres to reach an area where there is some food distribution,” says Rania Dagash, deputy regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa at UNICEF.

Four consecutive rainy seasons have failed in the Horn of Africa. Climate experts say the next one could fail too.

“We have observed decreases in rainfall over the last few years. We see a decreasing amount of rainfall from 2 to 7% per decade,” says Bob Stefanski, chief of the Agricultural Meteorology Division at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The war in Ukraine has disrupted supply chains and sent the prices of food commodities up. Millions on the African continent, which relies heavily on imports, are on the brink of famine.

“Could we imagine countries and regions actually fighting over access to water as water becomes more and more precious?” asks analyst Daniel Warner.

For more insights and discussions from Switzerland’s international city, subscribe to Inside Geneva on Apple PodcastsExternal link, SpotifyExternal link, or wherever you get your podcasts. And subscribe to our newsletter to get all the International Geneva news and views from Imogen Foulkes in your inbox.

For more audio content from SWI swissinfo.ch, explore The Swiss Connection, a podcast with Swiss stories for the world.