IMF - part.1

Between 22–23 August 2025, the United Nations sounded the alarm on famine in Gaza, with the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirming catastrophic hunger conditions affecting 514,000 people, projected to rise to 641,000 by end-September. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the crisis a “man-made disaster” and demanded full humanitarian access, while the UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy described it as a “moral outrage.” In the same 48-hour period, Palestinian authorities reported 61 killed in Israeli attacks and 8 deaths from starvation, bringing the hunger-related toll to 281, including 114 children, with over 300 injured. Israel rejected the UN’s famine declaration as biased, but UN agencies and aid groups blamed restrictions on relief deliveries for the escalating emergency.

Although the UN Security Council has not held a new session on food security or climate in the past two weeks, its earlier high-level debate in February 2024 remains a reference point. At that meeting, the Council heard that over 330 million people suffered acute food insecurity in 2023, of whom 174 million were directly affected by the interaction of conflict and climate shocks. FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol warned that 258 million people in 58 countries were facing crisis levels of hunger, while UN climate chief Simon Stiell stressed that without stronger adaptation finance, food insecurity would continue to fuel instability and displacement in fragile states.

At the same time, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been warning of the erosion of global development progress. In July 2025, outgoing UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner revealed that only 35% of the Sustainable Development Goals are on track, while 18% have actually regressed. In August 2025, Steiner cautioned that sweeping aid cuts by major donors such as the U.S., UK, and Australia are creating “life-threatening consequences” for vulnerable communities, undermining food programs, HIV response, and refugee support. He stressed that unless funding gaps are urgently closed, climate change, conflict, and collapsing governance structures will converge to trigger deeper humanitarian and security crises worldwide.