The cost of a plate of food16/10/2020

How much would you expect to pay for the most basic plate of food? Imagine paying nearly double your daily income on a basic plate of food...

It's something that many of us might take for granted. In New York for example, ingredients for a simple meal - perhaps a soup or a simple stew - costs just 0.6 percent of someone's income.

Contrast this with South Sudan, where a shopper would have to spend an astonishing 186 percent of their income to do the same. If people in New York had to pay the same % of the average income on a plate of food as someone in South Sudan, that meal would cost them US$392.82.

Such a difference brings into sharp focus the huge inequalities at play between those people in developing countries and others in more prosperous parts of the world.

Conflict and climate change have long affected people's ability to afford food across multiple countries, as they are driven from their land and livelihoods and left unable to produce or buy the produce they need to feed their families.

Now COVID-19 has added another layer to the challenges faced by most vulnerable groups, through increased unemployment, loss of remittances and weak economies that prevent countries offsetting the worst effects of the pandemic. Market-dependent groups in urban areas are increasingly at risk.

This is our call to be the change, for more solidarity and international aid.

Source: WFP, 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate