2% of Elon Musk’s Wealth Could Solve World Hunger, Says Director of UN Food Shortage Program

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (CNN Business) – A small group of ultra-wealthy individuals could help solve world hunger with just a fraction of their net worth, says the director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

Billionaires must “step up now, just once,” David Beasley said in an interview on the show. Connect the World CNN with Becky Anderson that aired on Tuesday, specifically citing the world’s two richest men, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

“US $ 6 billion to help 42 million people who are literally going to die if we don’t help them. It’s not complicated,” he added.

Tesla CEO Musk has a net worth of nearly $ 289 billion, according to Bloomberg, meaning Beasley is asking for a donation of just 2% of his fortune. The net worth of American billionaires has nearly doubled since the pandemic began, standing at $ 5.04 trillion in October, according to the groups. Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness.

A “perfect storm” of various crises, such as climate change and the covid-19 pandemic, means that many nations are “knocking on the door of famine,” Beasley said.

Half of Afghanistan’s population – 22.8 million people – is facing an acute hunger crisis, according to a WFP report posted on Monday. Rampant unemployment and a liquidity crisis mean the country is teetering on the brink of a humanitarian crisis and 3.2 million children under the age of five are at risk, the report concluded.

A series of new reports The Biden administration issued a stark warning last week: the effects of climate change will be far-reaching and pose problems for all governments.

Among the reports, the administration details how climate change is driving migration, the first time the US government has officially recognized the link between climate change and migration. WFP has warned of this wave of movements in the past, particularly in the “Dry Corridor” region of Central America.

“For example, let’s take the United States and the Central American region, the Dry Corridor, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, just in that area,” Beasley said Tuesday.

“We are feeding a lot of people there and the climate is changing with hurricanes and flash floods – it’s just devastating.”

In Ethiopia, WFP estimates that 5.2 million people They urgently need food assistance in the Tigray region, where Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has led a major offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) since last year. Since then, thousands of civilians have died, while more than 2 million have been displaced.

Humanitarian organizations such as WFP have struggled to get supplies to those in need in the region, exacerbating the crisis.

“I don’t know where they get their food from,” Beasley said in the lengthy interview. “We have run out of fuel. We have run out of cash, in terms of paying our people, we are running out of money and we cannot get our trucks in.”