Food distribution by the World Food Program (illustration).

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Hammadi Issa / AP / SIPA

As the World Food Program has just won the Nobel Peace Prize, Oxfam is sounding the alarm bells on food insecurity.

The financial aid promised by donor states to finance nutritional aid to the poorest countries is not reaching the UN, according to the NGO in a report published Tuesday.

The international community's response to malnutrition and famine is “dangerously insufficient”, says Oxfam.

The lack or absence of funding to fight hunger particularly affects seven countries: Afghanistan, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria (North), South Sudan, and Yemen, says the NGO in its report. entitled "later will be too late".

Last July, we warned that 12,000 people a day could die of hunger caused by the # COVID19 pandemic.



Today, the lack of funding is glaring.

We cannot wait until it is too late.



➡️ https://t.co/Y5mAF0nADK pic.twitter.com/1jaAUyv5R6

- Oxfam France (@oxfamfrance) October 13, 2020

To date, donors have paid only 28% of the $ 10.19 billion requested in March by the UN to combat the negative effects of the Covid-19 crisis, or $ 2.85 billion.

Worse still: in five of these seven countries most at risk of hunger, donors have not provided any funds for food security linked to the pandemic, denounces Oxfam.

However, between January and September 2020, the number of people in a situation of acute food insecurity, for example, almost tripled in Burkina Faso, from 1.2 to 3.3 million people.

"Breaking the links between conflict and hunger"

As the UN reports on the estimated 690 million people - one in 11, who were chronically undernourished worldwide in 2019, Oxfam is focusing on more than 55 million people "on the brink of famine" in the seven most affected countries.

"Today, the world is once again facing a humanitarian crisis that humanitarian aid cannot resolve on its own," warns Oxfam, calling on states to "immediately provide adequate levels of funding (in cash or in kind)" and to “sever the links between conflict and hunger” by authorizing in particular “unhindered humanitarian access”.

The NGO also calls on States to "invest in resilient and equitable food systems", and to "strengthen investments in agroecological food production to guarantee a decent income for producers".

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