Dina Mahmoud (Beirut, London)
At a time when darkness threatens large areas of Lebanon due to the interruption of the operation of power plants due to the lack of financial liquidity, warnings are increasing about the expansion of the food insecurity crisis, with the number of people facing high levels of food scarcity in the country reaching one million and four hundred thousand people. at least.
This number constitutes approximately 25% of the population of Lebanon, who were subjected to a recent analytical study aimed at determining the food security situation in their country, between May and October of this year, using an internationally recognized scale in this regard, called the “Integrated Phase Classification”. for food security.
The study indicated that these people are now included in what that scale defines as the “crisis stage” in terms of lack of food, which is the penultimate level of the four stages of this classification.
This stage includes the residents of no less than 16 Lebanese districts, and means that these people are in dire need of urgent humanitarian measures aimed at reducing the food gap they suffer from, and aimed at enabling them to diversify the food they eat, and to protect themselves from harm. acute feeding.
At the same time, more than 2% of the Lebanese (about 77,000 people) are facing the emergency phase, which is the fourth and most dangerous level of that classification, which obliges the authorities in Beirut to deliver humanitarian food aid to this segment of the population, in a form urgent.
Experts emphasized that among the main reasons for the current exacerbation of food insecurity in Lebanon is the rise in the food price index there, between May 2022 and the same month of this year, by nearly 304%, due to the increase in the cost of basic foodstuffs in the local and global markets. This critical situation is also due to the massive decline in the value of the local currency, by up to 98% since the beginning of the current economic crisis in October 2019, and an estimated 70% between May 2022 and May 2023 alone.
The economic and financial collapse in Lebanon also led to nearly a quarter of the population suffering from unemployment, especially if they were young people, women or refugees, which reduced the ability of all of them to provide their food needs, forcing at least 15% of families Lebanese, to rely on at least two, what is known as negative coping strategies with diminished ability to earn a living, which includes over-exploitation of natural resources, land depletion, and others.
In addition, the strengthening of the humanitarian and social aid system in Lebanon, during the first quarter of 2023, did not support the ability of the population to cover the minimum requirements related to meeting basic food needs, which coincides with the escalation of the current political uncertainty, resulting from a vacancy. Sovereign positions, particularly the presidencies of the Republic and the Central Bank, in addition to the lack of a government with full powers.
The study, which was published by the United Nations “Relief Web” website, warned of the possibility of a continued deterioration in the food security situation for the most vulnerable segments of Lebanese society, calling on the authorities to exert greater efforts in order to improve the population’s ability to access food, whether through Increasing their financial resources, by creating more effective social safety nets, or by providing them with more food, directly.
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