Dagbladet believes: - Bombs are sounding in Africa

Management

Famine, climate change and armed conflict could strike the African continent as never before. It’s a time bomb that will explode soon.

Hunger: Skinny babies get water from a jug. Millions of people in Africa are fighting a daily battle for survival. Photo: Nils-Inge Kruhaug/SCANPIX/NTB
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boss: This is an editorial from Dagbladet, and expresses the views of the newspaper. Dagbladet’s political editor is responsible for the editorial.

published
Friday May 27 2022 – 10:11 PM

Rarely does an accident come alone. The African continent is severely affected by major and dangerous crises at the same time:

In East Africa, more than 20 million people are at risk of starvation.
Africa is the continent most vulnerable to climate change.
Africa is the region in the world with the largest number of conflicts.

At the very least, the population of Africa will double in the next 30 years. It won’t make conflicts over resources like food and water any easier to resolve. exactly the contrary.

Hence, it is a life-threatening combination From the various events that we are witnessing in parts of Africa. A toxic combination of climate change, conflict and famine could explode into the heart of the continent. Yes, this is also where Frp wants to be Sending people seeking asylum in Norway.

In the midst of all this, the government has cut off aid to fund the reception of Ukrainian refugees here at home. The timing couldn’t be worse.

For the first time in years, the number of people living in extreme poverty will increase. This year, nearly 100 million more people will live in extreme poverty than estimated before the pandemic. For the first time in many years, we will have more poor people.

The famine will only increase in scope. The war in Ukraine made it difficult to obtain food grains and cooking oil. Then prices rise, and for every increase in food prices, that increases by 10 million poor people.

The epidemic continues to have dire consequences in poor countries. And while the richest countries recovered quickly from the pandemic, it will take a long time before the poorest countries do the same.

Last but not least: poor countries have contributed the least to climate change and are at the same time least willing to resist it. More severe weather will lead to food shortages and more and more people fleeing.

Now there is a crisis. Although there are a lot of things that have moved in the right direction, things are now about to turn around. A few years ago, we could look back at a time when more and more people lived in democracies, the proportion of poor people decreased every year and conflicts became more and more rare. Now things are going the wrong way again. For Africa, it could be a complete crisis.