Global food crisis continues, USAID administrator talks causes

Amber CoakleyAugust 5, 2022

USAID Administrator Samantha Power is interviewed by the Associated Press, Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022, at USAID Headquarters in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 12:30 PM PT – Friday, August 5, 2022

The world’s supply chains are continuing to fall short of the needs for countries that rely on foreign aid. In an interview with Associated Press on Thursday, an administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, gave her point of view as she deals with the global food crisis that has millions going hungry.

“”Now we’re almost 20 million people who are going hungry and who are dependent on this emergency food assistance, but other donors are stretched pretty thin, other countries are stretched thin,” she stated.

During a visit to the horn of Africa, Power saw just how affected these dependent countries have become. In Kenya, residents have had four consecutive years of drought, where there has not been enough rain to grow food crops and they are projected to have a fifth.

“That’s never happened in recorded history to have four consecutive failed rainy seasons and so the livestock, often in famine conditions, that is who dies first,” explained Powers. “And then that ends up being something of a canary in the coal mine for humanity.”

Today, I’m announcing a $106M partnership between @USAID and @WFP to provide food and nutrition assistance to nearly 914K crisis-affected people facing food insecurity and malnutrition, across South Sudan. https://t.co/URrecTx8tw

— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) August 4, 2022

Powers claims the shortage is the result of local conflicts and economic disruptions of the pandemic, all of which have been compounded by Russia invading Ukraine. This has deepened food shortages and raised prices as one top global grain producer made war on another.

“All of the damage done up to this point by Russia has created such acute needs in Ukraine that the fixed sort of foreign assistance budgets or emergency assistance budgets just now have more claimants,” said Powers.

USAID is continuing to monitor the global food crisis and will provide aid to countries that fall short in their own food production.