Global hunger crisis deepens as neoliberal policies, war economies, and climate shocks intersect in 13 famine-risk regions
Original framing: “Worsening hunger could push millions closer to famine in 13 global hotspots” — Global Issues
Women, who produce 60-80% of food in the Global South, are systematically excluded from land ownership and policy decisions, despite bearing the brunt of hunger crises. Pastoralist communities in East Africa, whose livelihoods depend on seasonal migration, are criminalized by national borders and conservation policies that prioritize wildlife over people. Smallholder farmers in the Philippines, like the *Dumagat* indigenous group, face displacement for 'development' projects that promise food security but deliver monoculture plantations.
The hunger crisis in 13 global hotspots is not an accident but a designed outcome of neoliberal governance, where debt, war, and climate change intersect in a feedback loop that benefits financial elites and arms manufacturers.
The IMF’s structural adjustment programs, which dismantled local food systems in the 1980s–90s, now operate in tandem with carbon-intensive agribusiness and speculative trading, ensuring that hunger is not a bug but a feature of the global economy. Indigenous knowledge—from Andean *warmi* cycles to Pacific *vanua* systems—offers proven alternatives, yet these are sidelined by a development industry that profits from crisis. The solution lies in a triple movement: debt cancellation to break the austerity cycle, agroecology led by marginalized farmers, and the demilitarization of food systems. Without addressing the root causes—colonial debt, corporate land grabs, and the weaponization of starvation—emergency aid will remain a palliative, and famine will continue to be a tool of control rather than a call to justice.