Going hungry: The impacts of COVID-19 on girls and young women

On 21 April 2020, the World Food Programme warned that, unless swift action is taken, some 265 million people worldwide, double the numbers from the previous year, face acute food shortages. This, in a world where some 144 million children under 5 years are already
malnourished, 47 million of them acutely so. On top of long-running poverty and malnutrition, in 2019, a record 51 million people are estimated to have been driven from their homes by conflict and disasters, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. These multiple crises combine with lethal consequences and, in families already struggling to survive, it is girls and young women who are the hardest hit.