The World Food Programme (WFP) warned about an additional 24 million people worldwide becoming at risk of being exposed to emergency hunger as a result of shrinking funds.

WFP said in a statement that 24 million more people may suffer from emergency hunger in the coming 12 months; a 50 percent increase compared to current levels, pointing out that the Programme is struggling to meet the increasing global needs for food aid at a time when it faces the highest rate of funding shortages this year by more than 60 percent.

In this context, WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said: "We need to be scaling up life-saving assistance not cutting it," explaining: "If we dont receive the support we need to avert further catastrophe, the world will undoubtedly see more conflict, more unrest, and more hunger." The United Nations programme estimates the number of people facing acute food insecurity at 345 million people globally, ranking 3 out of 5 on the IPC Acute Food Insecurity classification.

Source: Qatar News Agency