The ABCs of Sustainable Development Goals and Sudan’s situation III

By Dr. Hassan Humeida

Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger

Kiel, Germany: Food security is defined, according to an agreement reached at the World Food Summit held in Rome, Italy, in 1996, when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

Food security has four main dimensions: physical availability, physical, economic access to food, utilizing food, and stability of the three dimensions over time.

Food insecurity is measured by the Global Hunger Index (GHI), a multidimensional statistical tool to describe the hunger situation in countries, which identifies situations of progress and failure.

The Global Hunger Index is updated once at the end of each year, to keep up with the global efforts to combat it.

According to the 2022 United Nations report regarding global food security, there are about 828 million people suffering from chronic hunger in the world.

In 2021, about 782 million people suffered from chronic hunger, an increase of 46 million people in just one year.

This increase in the number of hungry people globally, despite the efforts made to reduce it, is due to the coronavirus pandemic and its economic repercussions that have increased the severity of hunger to unprecedented levels.

This deplorable increase occurred after many agricultural countries abandoned the cultivation of basic food crops on which they relied, and moved towards relying on imported wheat for local consumption, instead of relying on their own food sources.

In many countries, hunger was the consequence of poor economic and administrative planning and of prioritizing cash crops over basic food crops for their citizens.

The causes that lead to hunger are either natural causes, such as drought, desertification, and the destruction of pests harmful to agriculture and plant growth, or man-made, such as economic stagnation in markets, high prices, and lack of equitable distribution.

Internal problems, civil wars, and wars with neighboring countries are also among the man-made causes of the deterioration of food security.

Such causes lead to instability in productive agricultural and pastoral areas. Farmers and herders often leave their home areas due to wars and the lack of security and move to safe areas.

Quite often, they lose their property and their work tools due to looting at gunpoint, followed by forced displacement.

The ensuing result is the loss of the productive groups that contribute practically to securing food for the people, not only locally, but also globally.

One of the effects of food insecurity is malnutrition, which includes deficiency, excess, or imbalance in the energy or nutrients consumed daily.

The term malnutrition addresses three broad groups of conditions: undernutrition, which includes wasting (low weight-for-height), stunting (low height-for-age) and underweight (low weight-for-age).

Undernutrition makes children, in particular, much more vulnerable to disease and death.

Low birth weight in newborns, according to the definition of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO), is a body weight of less than 2.5 kilograms.

Postpartum weight loss is calculated by comparing the average weight and age (Z-score) with the help of physical growth tables prepared for children, or by using the mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) tape.

Malnutrition in adults is determined by calculating the body mass index (BMI), using the body’s weight and height.

A body mass index of less than 18 kg/m2 means a lack of energy, proteins, or micronutrients, or a combination of deficiency in them, or the presence of diseases related to nutrition. However, there are diseases of psychological origin, such as anorexia nervosa.

There are other types of malnutrition that are related to an imbalance of micronutrients in the body, or due to obesity caused by the daily diet.

There are other types of malnutrition related to organic causes, such as partial absorption or insufficient absorption of nutrients necessary for the body.

Malnutrition can result from other diseases, such as digestive disorders due to intolerance to glute – a protein compound found in wheat flour -, or to Crohn’s syndrome (a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or following surgeries on the digestive system, such as partial gastric resection or gallbladder.

Malnutrition has harmful and long-term effects on children’s health, which hinders growth in its initial stages and paves the way for the occurrence of chronic diseases in later years. These effects begin early and result from the absence of nutrients necessary for the body’s cells and mental and physical development.

Here, for example, there are three essential elements that can be obtained only through balanced nutrition, such as iron, which is important for blood functions and for connecting and transporting oxygen to various organs of the body, zinc, which is important for making enzymes, for the immune system, and for avoiding infections in the body, and iodine, which is important in the formation of thyroid hormones and brain cell growth.

Chronic deficiency of such elements that are necessary for the body, or of building elements, such as calcium and phosphate needed for the growth of teeth and bones, or of vitamins such as vitamin A or D, leads to physical changes with dire consequences.

These changes can occur in the eyes, skin, bones, muscles, nerves, and other cells, tissues, and various organs of the body.

The most alarming issue is that these changes may remain with the children if they are not prevented early, affecting their general health at later times in life, mainly during adulthood and old age.

Currently, due to the ongoing war, most Sudanese people are suffering from the hidden hunger, which portends the largest famine afflicting this region if the matter is ignored by the international community in this forgotten war.

If full peace is not achieved in Sudan, famine, unprecedented in recent history, is expected to occur early next summer.

Such unprecedented famine levels will occur when the lives of people in Sudan are disrupted by the lack of peace, security, work, and wages.

We clearly see the preparation for the spread, through war, of famine in a country that is rich in wealth and human and natural resources. Sudan, when blessed with permanent peace, does not normally need humanitarian aid. Sudan critically needs permanent peace.

Even if peace prevails throughout Sudan, we must recall the studies of the British scientist and epidemiologist, the late Professor David James Parker (1938-2013).

Parker’s famous theories explain the relationship between malnutrition and hunger in childhood and youth that leads to the emergence and exacerbation of chronic diseases later.

The theories argue that the first causes for diseases related to nutritional deficiency are laid in the early childhood years.

Sometimes, they appear during the period of the first fetus, due to the lack of energy-rich substances, proteins, and micronutrients necessary for cell life to grow and develop.

Deprived of meat, milk, sufficient daily calories and the diversity of healthy food that contains the chemical elements necessary for life, such as minerals and vitamins, the human body is affected in the long term and is afflicted with chronic diseases that impact people’s performance and the country’s economy.

The high costs of medical treatment for the individual, the family, and the state are another negative consequence.

The initial results of such a situation, expected between youth and old age, include weight loss, wasting, stunting, osteoporosis, mental retardation, and others in children.

In addition, chronic diseases are exacerbated by depriving people, (especially those in the developmental stages – children, youth), of food due to war and the spread of intentional hunger.

Thus, the human energy that drives the development of countries, the advancement of continents, and the prosperity of peoples (both the current generations and future generations) is wasted.

This applies to the current situation in Sudan afflicted by starvation, displacement, oppression, and killing under the eyes of the international community.

This is now the case of the Sudanese citizens who, through a peaceful and spontaneous revolution, have sought a better life and optimal governance by building a democratic system and establishing good civil governance.

email: hassan_humeida@yahoo.de