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Ian Bremmer: Global middle class erosion making people hungrier — and angrier
Until recently, global development had been defined by globalization, especially when it comes to a growing middle class and poverty reduction.
Not anymore, Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer said during a livestream conversation about the global food crisis hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The global middle class is eroding due to multiple crises now aggravated by food shortages and price hikes related to Russia's war in Ukraine. And that, he added, is having a direct impact on our state of mind.
People are becoming hungrier and angrier, Bremmer explained, and they will become less interested in global solutions to their problems — a sentiment that, in turn, will be reflected in their choice of government.
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Shocks making it harder to meet Sustainable Development Goals
After the pandemic and now the global food crisis, meeting the UN's Sustainable Goals by the 2030 deadline will be a tall order.
But actually it's previous systemic challenges aggravated by those crises that are undermining the push to achieve the SDGs, Kathryn Hollifield, from the World Bank's Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, explained during a livestream discussion on the global food crisis hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
To get the job done in time, she recommends moving on from global commitments to making progress at then national and local levels.
"Let's get off the global stage for a minute and focus on getting support to the ground and having our teams on the ground talk to each other," Hollifield said.
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Innovation: cause for optimism amid the global food crisis
How long will food prices keep rising? Will food itself become scarce? There's a lot of doom and gloom these days about the global food crisis, made even worse by Russia's war in Ukraine.
But there are some reasons to be hopeful, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said during a livestream conversation about the global food crisis hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the organization he leads.
The Gates Foundation, he explained, has long been investing in innovations that can massively increase productivity by smallholder farmers across the developing world. Think drought-tolerant seeds or flood-resistant rice.
What's more, new tools like apps to customize fertilizer use and digitally map soil are becoming available to smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The goal is to double smallholder productivity.
Still, Suzman points out, none of that will matter without investing more in climate adaptation — especially better use of water.
Global food crisis: when food isn't merely expensive
Shortages as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine have aggravated a pre-existing global food crisis that could push a billion people — most of them in the poorest parts of the world — into starvation. It's not just one thing: droughts, COVID-induced supply chain snarls, and high energy prices have all gotten us to this point. And it’ll get worse later on if we don’t find ways to future-proof global food systems.
So, what are we gonna do about it? Several experts weighed in during the livestream discussion "Hunger Pains: The growing global food crisis," hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Indeed, we are moving toward a long-term scenario in which countries will simply be unable to produce and export as food as they are now, said Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And that's going to have political consequences.
If more people around the world can't get enough to eat, Eurasia Group and GZERO President Ian Bremmer warned that'll erode the very fabric of globalization — the global middle class. What's more, he added, when people get hungrier, they'll get angrier, and less interested in global solutions to their problems, which will, in turn, be reflected in their choice of government.
The magnitude of the challenge is daunting, said Suzman. Just think of the millions of children who'll become stunted from malnutrition, which means their brains will never become fully developed. He thinks the scale and size of the response so far fall far short of what's needed.
Ertharin Cousin, former head of the UN's World Food Programme, noted how the pandemic laid bare the failure of regional food systems to feed everyone, and now of course the war in Ukraine has made everything worse, for instance by slashing the WFP's capacity to supply food to the needy without Ukrainian grains. If we don't completely rethink the ways we produce and distribute food, she said we may soon transition from an affordability crisis to an availability crisis.
For her part, Kathryn Hollifield, from the World Bank's Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, unpacked the systemic challenges that are hurting the odds of meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by the 2030 deadline.
Thomas Njeru, who knows a thing or two about smallholder farming because he grew up on a small farm in his native Kenya before co-founding a micro-insurance firm for smallholders, called for big agribiz to do more to increase the productivity of smallholders so we don't end up with situations like tomatoes costing four times more in Nairobi than in Chicago.
Finally, David Laborde, a research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, predicted that we have already reached peak global food inflation, although prices might rise further at the local level in some countries. He has a very clear message for governments thinking of export bans to address shortages: don't do it, because in the long run it'll hurt your farmers too.
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We've reached peak global food inflation, says IFPRI expert
Global food prices have been going through the roof over the past few months — but there's some good news on the horizon.
Weather permitting, the prices of key commodities like wheat are now almost back to their levels before Russia invaded Ukraine, David Laborde, a senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said during a livestream discussion on the global food crisis hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
"Overall, I think really we have reached in global markets already the peak in terms of prices," he added.
At the country level, we can still expect a few more months of rising prices because there's always a lag between global markets and our local grocery store. The other problem is high energy prices, which drive up transportation costs, but unless there's a climate shock in a big producer Laborde believes "we have seen the worst of it."
If we don't act fast to help smallholder farmers, developing world might soon run low on food
Ertharin Cousin, former head of the UN's World Food Programme, doesn't like when people talk about the handoff between humanitarian response and development response.
Why? Because that imperils those caught in between the two, such as smallholder farmers who barely survived the pandemic and are now struggling with the global food price crisis, she explained in a livestream discussion, "Hunger Pains: The growing global food crisis," presented by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Cousin says we must meet what she refers to as the "midterm" challenges so months from now we don't transition from "a food affordability crisis to a food availability crisis."
That's no exaggeration, she adds, because 80% of the food consumed in the developing world is affected by what smallholder farmers are going through today.
What's causing the global food crisis? Watch our live townhall discussion
WATCH: In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GZERO Media presents “Hunger Pains,” a livestream event focused on the growing global food crisis, which could push more than a billion people towards starvation. Food supply chains, already disrupted by the COVID pandemic, are now further roiled by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Droughts and floods tied to climate change are impacting harvests globally and prices continue to rise, driving those most in need further into poverty.
Our experts will discuss the scope of the growing crisis, examine immediate needs and policy priorities, and review solutions that could help future-proof food supplies.
Join host Diana Fox Carney, senior advisor at Eurasia Group, in a live discussion with:
- Ian Bremmer, President and Founder, Eurasia Group and GZERO Media
- Ertharin Cousin, Former Executive Director, UN World Food Programme
- Kathryn Hollifield, Program Manager, Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP)
- David Laborde, Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute
- Thomas Njeru, CEO and Co-Founder, PULA
- Mark Suzman, CEO, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Hunger Pains: The growing global food crisis
Monday, July 11, 2022 | 2:00 pm ET
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Africa still sees COVID glass half empty — African CDC chief
Is the pandemic over? Depends on where you are, according to Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"If you are sitting in Africa, they have the glasses half empty.
And if you are sitting in the global note, the glass might be half full," he said during a livestream discussion on equitable vaccine distribution hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Nkengasong explained that the optimism seen now in countries like the US or the UK, where so many people have been vaccinated, is "not exactly what we are seeing in the part of the world that I'm serving."
Africans are still very worried about COVID, he said. Across the continent, the pandemic is still seen as unpredictable, and its trajectory remains uncertain.