In its latest newsletter, the Washington-based Bread for the World organization shares why there is a hunger crisis in Afghanistan and in Haiti.
“Afghanistan would be considered likely to have high rates of hunger because at least two of the major causes of global hunger affect it—armed conflict and fragile governmental institutions,” its leaders write. “The hunger situation is now dire. As food prices rise, people are increasingly unable to buy the basic foods they need. It is a hunger emergency.”
Here are the facts they report on this dire situation in Afghanistan.
In Haiti, Bread for the World reports that multiple disasters have fueled its hunger emergency.
“In ‘normal’ times, Haiti’s population struggles to care for their families,” they write. “Haiti has made significant progress against child mortality and child malnutrition over the past few decades. But with nearly 60 percent of the population living below the poverty line, hunger among children is still far too common. Stunting, the result of chronic malnutrition in early childhood, affects more than one in five children (21.9 percent), with acute malnutrition, sometimes called wasting, at 3.7 percent.”