Up to 24 million people could slip into emergency hunger over the next 12 months, according to new figures from the World Food Programme (WFP) - theUN organization is being forced to make drastic cuts to most of its operations as funding plummets.
WFP's new calculation concludes that every 1 percent cut to its food assistance means 400,000 pushed from crisis to emergency hunger.
This would leave people on the brink, forced to take desperate measures to survive and at risk of dying from malnutrition.
"With the number of people around the world facing starvation at record levels, we need to be scaling up life-saving assistance - not cutting it," said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. "If we don't receive the support we need to avert further catastrophe, the world will undoubtedly see more conflict, more unrest, and more hunger."
Experts at the agency fear that a humanitarian 'doom loop' is being triggered, where WFP is being forced to focus on saving the lives of people facing starvation at the expense of people going hungry.
Massive reductions have already been implemented in almost half of WFP operations, including significant cuts in hotspots such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Jordan, Palestine, South Sudan, Somalia and Syria. The ripple effects of these cuts in life-saving aid will cause emergency levels of hunger to skyrocket even higher, creating more humanitarian emergencies in the future.
Acute malnutrition has left some 45 million children wasted, or painfully thin. This year alone, the number of acutely malnourished women and children climbed to nearly 36 million in WFP's 19 biggest nutrition operations.
While WFP has sharply expanded its nutrition response - reaching a record 28.5 million women and children around the world last year - funding cuts are shrinking our ability to reach people most needing assistance.
