Some 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, representing one in eleven people globally and one in five in Africa, according to a new report released Wednesday by five United Nations specialized agencies. The report warns that the world is significantly off track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger, by 2030, with alarming numbers of people experiencing food insecurity and malnutrition.
Both are worsening for many people across many countries due to a combination of factors, including persistent food price inflation that continues to undermine economic gains, according to the report. Key drivers, including conflict, climate change and economic downturns, are becoming more frequent and severe.
Progress toward a world without hunger has stalled, while efforts to improve the nutritional status of billions of people have been set back 15 years as global crises deepen in some of the world's poorest countries, according to the annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report.
The report is jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The analysis shows that despite improvements in more populous countries with growing economies, hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition continue to increase in many parts of the world. This trend impacts millions of people, particularly in rural areas where extreme poverty and food insecurity remain deeply entrenched. Vulnerable populations, especially women, youth and indigenous peoples, are disproportionately affected.
Despite some progress in specific areas such as stunting and exclusive breastfeeding, global hunger levels have plateaued for three consecutive years, with 713 to 757 million people undernourished in 2023, and a mid-range of 733 million. This is about 152 million more than in 2019, when the mid-range is considered, and follows a spike in global hunger from 2019 to 2021.
"Based on the current trajectory, our projections indicate that 582 million people will still face hunger in 2030 and half of them will be in Africa," Maximo Torero, FAO chief economist told journalists in Geneva on Monday, in advance of the report's publication.
"Even though hunger has stalled at the global level, there are signs of encouragement, as there are significant regional and subregional differences," he said on a video link from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Data on regional trends show that progress has been made in reducing hunger in some subregions of Asia, and particularly in Latin America, from 2022 to 2023. However, experts say hunger continues to rise in West Asia, the Caribbean and most African subregions, with hunger in Africa steadily increasing since 2015.
"In 2023, Africa is the region with the largest percentage of the population facing hunger—more than 20 percent," said Torero, noting that the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity there was 58 percent, "which was nearly double the global average."
"One of the main challenges is that Africa is the only region where hunger increases are associated to all three major drivers—conflict, climate extremes and economic downturns. And many of the countries face these major drivers at the same time," he said.
The report highlights that access to adequate food remains elusive for billions of people. In 2023, some 2.33 billion people around the world faced moderate or severe food insecurity, a number that has not changed significantly since the sharp increase in 2020. Of these, more than 863 million people experienced severe food insecurity, at times going without food for an entire day or more.
While Latin America shows improvement, broader persistent challenges remain, particularly in Africa, where 58 percent of the population is moderately or severely food insecure.
Amid this bad news, Francesco Branca, director of the WHO's Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, said there was some good news in the report. Since 2012, the global level of stunting - a condition that impairs child growth and development - has declined from 26 percent to 22 percent, he said. In addition, acute malnutrition among children under five has dropped from 7.5 percent to 6.8 percent.
"We also have to celebrate the success of improving breastfeeding rates from 37 percent to 48 percent, almost reaching the target that the World Health Assembly established by 2025. We still have a lot of work to do for the 2030 target, but we are on track there," he said.
Unfortunately, Branca pointed out that anemia in women aged 15 to 49 has increased, with "more than half a billion" affected by this condition. "And, of course, the other bad news is the number of adults with overweight or obesity has risen significantly."
"We now calculate over a billion individuals are affected by this condition with projections to increase to 1.2 billion obese adults by 2030," he said.
Authors of the report warn that "The double burden of malnutrition – the co-existence of undernutrition together with overweight and obesity – has also surged globally across all age groups."
"Thinness and underweight have declined in the last two decades, while obesity has risen sharply," they say.
Sara Savastano, a director at IFAD, is calling for action from all sectors of the economy, as well as agricultural interests, to address the nutritional challenges in Africa "where the burden of malnutrition and obesity is stronger than everywhere in the world."
The report argues that achieving zero hunger requires a multifaceted approach, including transforming and strengthening agri-food systems, addressing inequalities and ensuring affordable and accessible healthy diets for all, and a very large injection of cash.
WHO's Francesco Branca underscored the importance and cost-effectiveness of funding projects to end hunger, citing a 2012 World Bank report showing that investments in food security and nutrition pay big dividends.
The World Bank, he said, estimates the cost of achieving at least four of the global nutrition goals - stunting, anemia, exclusive breastfeeding, and wasting - at $70 billion over 10 years, or about $7 billion per year.
"Now, what we have seen in terms of donors' investment is $1 billion, which is a small fraction of what is needed just to achieve these four targets. But these investments produced an incredible return," Branca said.
"The investment of one dollar, for example, on programs to protect and support breastfeeding had a return of $35, which is really enormous. Programs investing in stunting, $11, anemia $12. So, there is definitely an incredible return," he said.
"We want to flag this because clearly at a time of shortage of resources for development, an investment in nutrition is really making a difference."
The report emphasizes that the looming funding gap requires innovative, equitable solutions, especially for countries facing high levels of hunger and malnutrition exacerbated by climate impacts.
"The progress we have made on reducing stunting and improving exclusive breastfeeding shows that the challenges we face are not insurmountable. We must use those gains as motivation to alleviate the suffering that millions of people around the world endure every day from hunger, food insecurity, unhealthy diets and malnutrition," said WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a statement.
“The substantial investment required in healthy, safe and sustainably produced food is far less than the costs to economies and societies if we do nothing.”
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: 2024 The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), report, released July 24, 2024
https://www.wfp.org/publications/2023-state-food-security-and-nutrition-world-sofi