How do you solve a life and death issue like hunger?
Yemen is heading toward the biggest famine in modern history, said the U.N. World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley after a visit to the country at the beginning of March.
“I was in Yemen, where over 16 million people now face crisis levels of hunger or worse. These aren’t just numbers. These are real people,” said Beasley.
He believes that without urgent intervention around 400,000 children may die there this year. “Are we really going to turn our backs on them and look the other way?”
Yemen faces an ongoing political conflict as well as severe agricultural challenges similar to other Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states.
The country suffers from a range of issues including low agricultural productivity, water scarcity, and lack of infrastructure facilities and production technologies, says the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
It is one of the populations that makes up the 176 million people in OIC countries battling acute hunger and malnutrition, according to the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC).
This substantial number accounts for around 10.5% of the OIC’s total population, despite the 57 member states managing more than enough arable land to feed themselves—some 1.38 billion hectares, equivalent to more than a fourth of the world’s agricultural area.
For the OIC, enhancing food security means increasing edible production to make food more available, accessible, and affordable.
The journey on the roads to fulfilling these goals is gruelling and overwhelming but not entirely defeating.
Taking the bull by the horns, in 2016 the OIC inaugurated the Islamic Organization for Food Security (IOFS).
After a period of careful and painstaking planning, IOFS is now ready to implement 16 strategic programs that were approved at its third General Assembly in December last year.
The organization will address the persistence of hunger by boosting food availability and accessibility, while championing supply stability.
Follow the link to read more: https://www.salaamgateway.com/story/a-matter-of-life-and-death-islamic-organization-for-food-security-kicks-off-multiple-programs-in-pur
