COVID has devastated our work around the world.
Let me just explain that very clearly. Pre-COVID, we had 135 million people in IPC 3, 4 and 5. In simple terms, that's not chronic hunger. That's a whole different number. The chronic hunger went from 650 million to 810 million people. Severe acute—in other words, marching toward starvation—went from 135 million to to 276 million people.
Here's the really bad news. Governments—major donors like Canada, United States, Germany, the EU and others—were stepping up and responding in unprecedented ways. We averted mass famine in 2020 and 2021. We've averted mass migration and destabilization of nations because you stepped up. We thought that the COVID economic ripple effect would be behind us by 2022, the economies would start coming up and the poorest countries would also start to recover. Unfortunately, COVID cycled and recycled again, continuing the economic deterioration and devastation in countries around the world.
Compound that with Ethiopia, the crisis in Afghanistan and now Ukraine, and we're actually seeing conditions that are worse right now than what we saw right before the Arab Spring in 2008 and 2011-12. The conditions are much worse.
We can actually break down which countries we're very concerned about with regards to destabilization. These are the hot spots that we really have to keep an eye on. If we don't give them attention, we could have grave consequences. Without getting into further detail....
Also not many people know, but I think you do, that we are the logistics arm for the United Nations and major NGOs. We don't just deliver food. We bring medicines. For UNICEF, WHO, and UNHCR, we are that supply chain for the systems of ships, trucks and airplanes. When COVID hit and the airline industry shut down, we actually stepped up and began delivering the COVID supplies, ventilation, PPE, testing equipment and all of these types of things, as well as passenger service for ambassadors, first-world responders, humanitarian workers—