Topic:
Country: Kenya
Delegate Name: Jack Novak
11-22-22
Submitted To: ECOSOC
From: Kenya
Subject: Food Instability and Political Crises
Delegate Name: Jack Novak
In the last year, 2.3 billion people – around 30% of the global population – faced food insecurity. The Ukraine and Russian conflict caused a challenge for food security, as both nations account for a large portion of global wheat and maize exports, as well as fertilizers. With the conflicts cutting off nearly all exports from both nations, countries like Egypt, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon, all of whom are reliant on Russian and Ukrainian exports, had to find new ways to source such goods. This obstacle serves as a great example that being heavily dependent on another country for food isn’t stable and is subject to collapse at any time.
Why is it that so many countries are reliant on first world countries? Why should we care? Will food instability in other countries affect our country? Kenya has suffered from the recent conflicts, as Russia supplies our nation with 31% of our total wheat. Kenya has been struggling with food insecurity since 2010 and even before. Recent events have further compounded this issue. Major increases in wheat prices occurred, as the price jumped from 1,038.70 Kenyan Shillings to 1344.20 Kenyan Shillings. Wheat is one of the most consumed items in Kenya and without it the number of starving people will increase further.
Many factors contribute to the food instability crises across the globe, including climate change, income inequalities and health crises. Each of these issues must be addressed before addressing food insecurity. Even if we succeed in supplying many with food, these issues will still be occurring and therefore all the hard work will be for nothing. Kenya is facing huge impacts from climate change. We are unable to produce enough food due to severe droughts. We’ve already established the 2030 programme in hopes of building our nation. We’re doing our part so other nations should be held accountable and do theirs, too. Despite these long term challenges we do see temporary solutions.
The delegates of Kenya see a possible solution to this problem, such as cutting imports of wheat from Russia and creating a bilateral agreement between either India or the United States – two of the world’s largest wheat producers. The United States also is one of the largest importers of coffee. Coffee happens to be a product in Kenya which is able to be produced. We, the country of Kenya, believe that an arrangement between the two of us will help aid us in our food insecurity while also providing them with an item of interest. We hope that other nations break off trades with communist countries and instead engage in trade with countries who are reliable and truly care for global action.
The nation of Kenya has voted to cut ties with Russia and hope other countries will see the negative impacts of working with communist countries. Global food insecurity isn’t just a one nation issue, it’s a world issue. Working together to support each other is truly the best idea and we encourage other nations to follow suit.
