Topic: 2024-Famine in Conflict Zones
Country: Viet Nam
Delegate Name: Isabella Feenstra
Conflict zones impose severe displacements and inaccessibilities to stable food sources for the populations of affected countries. Since 2020, the world has witnessed a 40% uptick in rising conflicts that contribute to the number of people facing famine, malnutrition, and displacement, such as the situations in Gaza, Ukraine, and Syria. Conflicts devastate a country’s infrastructure, agricultural stability, supply chains, currency values, and import accesses. These disruptions unequivocally affect youth populations, endangering their growth and development with malnutrition. The FAO’s assistance is vital in mitigating such threats of starvation, nutritional deprivation, and displacement, as 309 million people face the harrowing consequences of famine.
VietNam deeply sympathizes with populations experiencing famine in war-torn areas, as we faced similar challenges during French/Japanese colonization in the 1940s and the Vietnam War. Our citizens endured the Great Famine of 1945 because of the Imperial Japanese confiscation of several tons of rice and crops under the “Rice Accords” pact with the Vichy Regime of France, leading to the death of one million people from starvation and disease in Northern VietNam. The majority of the appropriated agricultural goods went to waste as insects and rot set in the soldiers’ supplies while a plethora of Vietnamese slowly wasted away. VietNam currently strives to mitigate hunger through a Zero Hunger Initiative to eliminate household hunger, craft sustainable food systems, and decrease food waste. In light of VietNam’s history of famine, we uphold the necessity for intentional distributions of resources to maximize aid efforts to those facing famine in conflict zones. In support of United Nations Resolution 2417, VietNam stresses the importance for warring countries to maintain regulations that inhibit the use of hunger as a weapon of war. Additional relief efforts through partnership with the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) and The United Nations’ International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to import food sources like ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) directly to insecure populations is crucial to combating famine. Cooperations between conflict-zone governments, neighboring regions, and nonprofit organizations will prove critical in creating effective methods of famine alleviation and instrumental in establishing sound social services, medical outposts, and food store warehouses. Moreover, connections between international NGOs like Oxfam and World Vision and local organizations should occur for quick and methodical relief to the hurting populations. The services they can provide together, such as nutrition, medication, education, and support, are vital to the survival and beneficial impacts on those facing famine.
VietNam endeavors to create in-depth and easily accessible contingencies that account for those trapped within conflict zones facing famines. We look forward to collaborating with other countries on regional relations, agricultural sustainability/security, and medical aid to increase the United Nations and the world’s protection and assistance to those suffering in critical circumstances.
Sources:
https://www.pacificatrocities.org/rice-and-revolution-the-great-famine-of-vietnam-during-world-war-ii-1944-1945.html
https://www.wfpusa.org/articles/fall-update-on-wfps-response-to-the-global-hunger-crisis/
https://www.wfp.org/conflict-and-hunger
https://press.un.org/en/2018/sc13354.doc.htm
https://vietnam.un.org/en/4056-viet-nam-commits-achieve-zerohunger-viet-nam-2025
https://www.unicefusa.org/what-unicef-does/emergency-response
