The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has already wiped out 0.5 to 0.8 percent of global GDP and pushed more than 32 million people back into poverty worldwide, UN Development Program Administrator Alexander De Croo [warned](reuters.com/world/iran-war-pushing-more-than-30-million-back-into-poverty-un-development-chief-2026-04-23/) on Thursday. “Things that take decades to build up, it takes eight weeks of war to destroy them,” the former Belgian prime minister told Reuters.
De Croo singled out fertilizer shortages, which have been worsened by the disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz during planting season, as a crisis with consequences that have not yet fully arrived. “Food insecurity will be at its peak level in a few months, and there is not much that you can do about it,” he said. Agricultural productivity has already fallen, and crop yields later this year will reflect the damage. The $100 billion per year in remittances flowing to the Asia-Pacific region from family members working in Southwest Asia, is drying up.
