The increase in the price of food and energy is forcing individuals all over the world into poverty. Since March, in the space of just three months, about 71 million more people living in low-income nations now live in poverty, as per the report published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
On July 7, which studied 159 developing nations all over the world, inflation pressures made significantly worse by Russia’s full-scale military operation in war-torn Ukraine are already having “immediate and devastating impacts on the poorest households.”
Hotspots for rising levels of poverty have been recorded in the Balkans, the Capsian region, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The effect of the difficulty has been even faster than COVID-19, which pushed debt to 50-year highs.” Entire developing nations face the danger of being left behind as they struggle to contend with the continuing Covid pandemic, crushing debt levels, as well as now an accelerating food & energy crisis,” mentioned the UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner
Prior to the war, Russia and Ukraine ranked among the top exporters of inexpensive, accessible grain to underdeveloped areas. Nearly a 3rd of the world’s supply of wheat and barley, as well as over 70% of sunflower oil and corn, were all exported by Russia and Ukraine together.
Prices in developing nations have risen as a result of the blockade of Ukrainian ports by Russia and international sanctions imposed on the country. Josep Borrell, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, issued a warning in June that the conflict in Ukraine ran the risk of sparking a pandemic of hunger. Nearly 40% of the wheat that is sent to Africa originates from Russia and Ukraine.
Due to unpredictability and a lack of supply in the global energy market, the cost of energy has also increased dramatically for developing nations. According to the International Energy Agency, recent price increases have rendered cooking with liquid petroleum products expensive for an extra 30 million people in Africa and driven up the cost of power and gas throughout the whole continent.
Significant inflation has been brought on by the simultaneous rise in food and energy prices throughout the developing globe. According to Euromonitor International, the average inflation rate in developing nations is anticipated to hit 9.5 percent this year.
