The United Nations food agency’s head warned that more than 700 million people have been affected by the severe global hunger crisis and they continue to face uncertainty regarding their next meal.

The demand for food has increased continuously while the humanitarian fund continues to diminish, as reported by AP.

According to estimates of the World Food Programme from 79 countries where the Rome-based agency has been operational, around 783 million people, one in 10 of the world’s population, have to go to bed hungry every night.

This year, more than 345 million people are being forced to face high levels of food insecurity, which is an increase from around 200 million people from early 2021 before the occurrence of the pandemic, according to the agency.

“We are now living with a series of concurrent and long-term crises that will continue to fuel global humanitarian needs. This is the humanitarian community’s new reality — our new normal — and we will be dealing with the fallout for years to come,” she stated.

The World Food Programme (WFP) head, who is also late US senator John McCain’s widow, revealed that the estimates of the agency indicate that around 47 million individuals in more than 50 countries are on the verge of facing famine.

The alarming report also includes around 45 million children under the age of five, who are battling acute malnutrition currently.

“Our collective challenge is to ramp up the ambitious, multi-sectoral partnerships that will enable us to tackle hunger and poverty effectively, and reduce humanitarian needs over the long term,” said McCain, appealing to business leaders to focus on humanitarian public-private partnerships at the council meeting.

As per AP, CEO of Mastercard Michael Miebach, speaking to the council, said that “humanitarian relief has long been the domain of government” and the private sector and development institutions are considered as a source of financial donations for supplies.

“Money is still important, but companies can offer so much more. The private sector stands ready to tackle the challenges at hand in partnership with the public sector,” he said.

Miebach emphasised that “business cannot succeed in a failing world” and fellow citizens are impacted by humanitarian crises in the world.

He said that a business needs to use its expertise to strengthen its infrastructure so as to “innovate new approaches and deliver solutions at scale” to improve humanitarian operations.