From food lines in Somalia to clinics in Afghanistan, Hormuz crisis sends shockwaves through global aid networks

Despite a fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran, sporadic hostilities and continued uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz – one of the world's most important energy and shipping corridors – continue to reverberate through global supply chains, pushing up transport and fuel costs and straining aid operations already grappling with severe funding shortfalls.

Real consequences

Speaking at UN Headquarters in New York on Thursday, World Food Programme (WFP) Acting Executive Director Carl Skau said warnings issued earlier in the crisis about the knock-on effects of higher energy prices were now materialising in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries.

“Just to illustrate that what we warned against is now playing out in real time in many of these contexts,” he told reporters.

Hunger rising

Several weeks ago, WFP warned that if oil prices remained above $100 a barrel through July, as many as 45 million additional people could be pushed into hunger because of the close relationship between energy and food prices.

That pressure is already mounting: an additional 2.5 million people in Somalia have become acutely food insecure, while a further 2.3 million people have been pushed into acute hunger in Afghanistan and another 1.3 million in Sri Lanka.

The drivers differ from country to country, Mr. Skau said, but include rising food prices, underfunded humanitarian responses and sharply higher operating costs that reduce the number of people aid agencies can reach with available resources.

The longer-term outlook is equally troubling.

Mr. Skau warned that higher fertilizer costs could reduce agricultural productivity in east Africa during the coming planting season, echoing disruptions seen after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and raising the prospect of additional food shortages months from now.

Missed deliveries

The effects are increasingly visible in humanitarian supply chains.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warns that maritime diversions around the Cape of Good Hope are adding between two and four weeks to shipping times, while air freight capacity across Middle Eastern routes has tightened and congestion is spreading through ports in Africa and elsewhere.

“Increased transport costs mean less money for the lifesaving supplies children need,” said Jean-Cédric Meeus, UNICEF’s Chief of Global Transport and Logistics.

“What begins as a disruption to shipping lanes can spiral into a humanitarian crisis.”

Skyrocketing prices of lifesaving aid

According to UNICEF, air freight costs for vaccines shipped from India to Ethiopia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have risen by up to 70 per cent. Trucking costs for lifesaving therapeutic food destined for Somalia, South Sudan and the DRC have also increased by a third.

Sea freight costs for education materials bound for Yemen and Mozambique have surged by as much as 150 per cent.

UNICEF estimates that supply disruptions could delay critical humanitarian cargo by four to six months.

“For a child in a crisis zone, delays in arrival of vaccines or nutrition interventions can mean the difference between life and death,” Mr. Meeus warned.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it’

Few places illustrate the cascading consequences more starkly than Afghanistan.

Fresh from a visit to the country, Mr. Skau described witnessing hundreds of mothers carrying visibly malnourished children away from a rural health clinic near Jalalabad because nutrition supplies had run out.

The shortages stem from a combination of funding cuts and supply-chain disruptions that have complicated deliveries previously routed through neighbouring countries.

“I've never seen anything like it,” Mr. Skau said. “The desperation in that clinic is hard to describe.”

Afghanistan is simultaneously coping with economic pressures linked to the regional crisis and the return of some 2.8 million people deported or repatriated from neighbouring countries over the past year.

Dire Strait

The humanitarian consequences are part of a broader economic shock.

Before the escalation began on 28 February, roughly a fifth of global oil shipments passed through the Strait of Hormuz.

Since then, disruptions have driven up crude oil prices and increased costs across transport networks and supply chains. Hundreds of vessels and tens of thousands of seafarers remain stranded.

A new analysis by the UN trade and development body, UNCTAD, warns that the burden is falling disproportionately on poorer countries.

Of 75 vulnerable economies studied, 65 are net oil importers. Together they are home to nearly one billion people, more than 30 per cent of whom live on less than $3 a day.

UNCTAD estimates that a sustained 50 per cent increase in refined oil prices would add more than $20 billion annually to their collective import bill. For some countries, including Mauritania, Gambia, Vanuatu, Maldives and Burkina Faso, the additional costs could exceed five per cent of national economic output.

Told you so

The developments echo concerns previously raised by Secretary-General António Guterres in April, when he warned that even under the most optimistic scenario, disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz would depress economic growth, increase inflation and disrupt global trade.

He cautioned that a prolonged crisis could push millions more people into poverty and hunger while reversing hard-won development gains.

The ceasefire – albeit fragile – has reduced fears of immediate military escalation.

Yet many of the consequences outlined by Mr. Guterres are already emerging: higher food and transport costs, disrupted supply chains, mounting pressure on vulnerable economies and growing humanitarian needs.

As Mr. Skau put it, the consequences that agencies warned about weeks ago are now “playing out in real time.”