As many as 828 mn people affected by hunger in 2021: Report

Food shop. Photo courtesy of Gabriella Clare, Unsplash

Geneva, 21 Jul (Kanaga Raja) — The number of people affected by hunger globally rose to as high as 828 million in 2021, an increase of 46 million from a year earlier and about 150 million more since the outbreak of the Covid -19 pandemic in 2019, according to a United Nations report.

According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022, despite hopes that the world would emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and food security would begin to improve, world hunger rose further in 2021.

The report said the increase in global hunger in 2021 reflects exacerbated inequalities across and within countries due to an unequal pattern of economic recovery among countries and unrecovered income losses among those most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The report has been 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 UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Low-income countries, where agriculture is key to the economy, jobs and rural livelihoods, have little public resources to re-purpose. FAO is committed to continue working together with these countries to explore opportunities for increasing the provision of public services for all actors across agri-food systems,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu.

“These are depressing figures for humanity. We continue to move away from our goal of ending hunger by 2030. The ripple effects of the global food crisis will most likely worsen the outcome again next year. We need a more intense approach to end hunger and IFAD stands ready to do its part by scaling up its operations and impact. We look forward to having everyone’s support,” said IFAD President Gilbert F. Houngbo.

“The unprecedented scale of the malnutrition crisis demands an unprecedented response. We must double our efforts to ensure that the most vulnerable children have access to nutritious, safe, and affordable diets – and services for the early prevention, detection and treatment of malnutrition. With so many children’s lives and futures at stake, this is the time to step up our ambition for child nutrition – and we have no time to waste,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

“There is a real danger these numbers willclimb even higher in the months ahead. The global price spikes in food, fuel and fertilizers that we are seeing as a result of the crisis in Ukraine threaten to push countries around the world into famine. The result will be global de-stabilization, starvation, and mass migration on an unprecedented scale. We have to act today to avert this looming catastrophe,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley.

“Every year, 11 million people die due to unhealthy diets. Rising food prices mean this will only get worse. WHO supports countries’ efforts to improve food systems through taxing unhealthy foods and subsidizing healthy options, protecting children from harmful marketing, and ensuring clear nutrition labels. We must work together to achieve the 2030 global nutrition targets, to fight hunger and malnutrition, and to ensure that food is a source of health for all,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

According to the UN report, with eight years remaining to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition (SDG Targets 2.1 and 2.2), the world is moving in the wrong direction.

Food insecurity further deteriorated in 2021, and the only progress made towards the 2030 global nutrition targets was for exclusive breast-feeding among infants under six months of age and child stunting, while anaemia among women and adult obesity are actually worsening, it said.

“The unequal pattern of economic recovery in 2021 among countries and the unrecovered income losses among those most affected by the pandemic have exacerbated existing inequalities and have worsened the food security situation for the populations already struggling the most to feed their families.”

Food prices have also increased in the past year due to bottlenecks in supply chains, soaring transport costs and other disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, said the report.

Furthermore, it said the war in Ukraine is disrupting supply chains and further affecting global grain, fertilizer and energy prices, leading to shortages and fuelling even higher food price inflation.

On top of this, the growing frequency and intensity of extreme climate events are proving to be a major disrupter of supply chains, especially in low-income countries (LICs).

Altogether, the report said that the intensification of the major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition – conflict, climate extremes, economic shocks, combined with growing inequality – often occurring in combination, continues to challenge the quantity and quality of foods people can access, while making the fiscal situation of many countries more challenging for governments trying to mitigate the effects of these drivers.

World hunger rose further in 2021, following a sharp upturn in 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, it added.

It said that the persistence of the pandemic and its enduring consequences, which exacerbated existing inequalities, have contributed to further setbacks in 2021 towards achievement of the Zero Hunger target by 2030.

After remaining relatively unchanged since 2015, the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) jumped from 8.0 percent in 2019 to around 9.3 percent in 2020 and continued to rise in 2021 – though at a slower pace – to around 9.8 percent.

It is estimated that between 702 and 828 million people in the world (corresponding to 8.9 percent and 10.5 percent of the world population, respectively) faced hunger in 2021.

The report said that considering the middle points of the projected ranges (722 and 768 million), hunger affected 46 million more people in 2021 compared to 2020 and a total of 150 million more people since 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Considering the upper bound of the range, the number could be as high as almost 210 million more people in two years, it added.

The report said the numbers show persistent regional disparities, with Africa bearing the heaviest burden. One in five people in Africa (20.2 percent of the population) was facing hunger in 2021, compared to 9.1 percent in Asia, 8.6 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, 5.8 percent in Oceania, and less than 2.5 percent in Northern America and Europe.

“Africa is also the region where the proportion of the population affected by hunger has increased the most.”

Of the total number of undernourished people in 2021 (768 million), more than half (425 million) live in Asia and more than one-third (278 million) live in Africa, while Latin America and the Caribbean accounts for close to 8 percent (57 million).

In Africa, 35 million more people were affected by hunger in 2020 compared with 2019, prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, with an additional 15 million in 2021, for a total of 50 million more people in two years.

Similarly, the report said 9 million more people were hungry in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2020 than in 2019, and an additional 4 million were thrust into hunger between 2020 and 2021, while in Asia, the increases were of 58 million in 2020 and 26 million in 2021.

The report said that the further increase in global hunger in 2021 following the sharp upturn in 2020 is consistent with existing evidence of the persisting economic hardships induced by the Covid-19 crisis that have widened inequalities in access to food.

It said in 2021, the recovery in terms of GDP growth has been highly uneven across countries, mainly in detriment to LICs and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs).

The report said that while high-income countries (HICs) are recovering at a solid pace with a good prospect of regaining their pre-pandemic real per capita income levels in 2022, LICs and LMICs are experiencing a much slower pace of economic growth, and most are not expected to return to their pre-pandemic levels by 2022.

“Disadvantaged groups of the population, such as women, youth, low-skilled workers and workers in the informal sector, were disproportionately impacted by the economic crisis that was triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and by the measures implemented to contain it.”

The report said that projections by the World Bank showed that while the top 20 percent of the global income distribution had recovered in 2021 about half of the income lost during 2020, the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution had not yet started to recover their income losses.

Not only did global extreme poverty increase, but so did global income inequality for the first time in 20 years, it added.

However, the increase in poverty would likely have been even larger in the absence of the observed surge in social protection interventions. Between March 2020 and May 2021, as many as 222 countries or territories had planned or implemented social protection measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, said the report.

“Nevertheless, the coverage, inclusiveness and adequacy of these measures varied. Over 40 percent of the social protection measures identified in the review consisted of one-time payments, and nearly three-fourths lasted three months or less – far less than the reverberations of the pandemic.”

These disparities in the impact of the pandemic and the recovery, together with the limited coverage and duration of the social protection measures, led to widening inequalities, said the report.

It said that the prospects for achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 (SDG Target 2.1) are disheartening. It is projected that nearly 670 million people will still be undernourished in 2030 – 8 percent of the world population, which is the same proportion as in 2015 when the 2030 Agenda was launched.

“This is 78 million more undernourished people in 2030 compared to a scenario in which the pandemic had not occurred,” it added.

The projected gradual reduction in global hunger by 2030 is largely due to the significant improvements foreseen for Asia, where the number of undernourished people (NoU) is projected to fall from the current 425 million to around 295 million (equivalent to about 6 percent of the population), and to a simultaneous worsening in Africa, where the NoU is projected to grow from almost 280 million to more than 310 million (corresponding to slightly above 18 percent of the population), said the report.

For Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of people affected by undernourishment is projected to remain stable until 2030 at around 56 million (which corresponds to about 8 percent of the population).

The report said at the time of writing, another crisis looms that is likely to impact the trajectory of food security globally – the war in Ukraine.

The Russian Federation and Ukraine are prominent players in the global trade of food and agricultural products, in particular of wheat, maize, sunflower, sunflower oils and fertilizers in markets characterized by exportable supplies concentrated in a handful of countries, it added.

“This concentration makes these markets, in particular, vulnerable to shocks such as the one that the current war represents,” said the report.

Several risks emanate from the conflict that will directly and indirectly impact global supply. Among them, the risk of disruptions in trade flows, and the resulting risk of soaring prices, are among the first to consider, it added.

In addition, the potential risk of reduced production levels of the next harvest and logistical risks like those posed by damage of transport, storage and processing infrastructure are also to be considered.

“Taken together, they cast a looming shadow over the prospect of food insecurity in the short and medium term, especially in impoverished countries, and constitute a challenge to the achievement of the SDG 2 target of Zero Hunger,” said the report.

The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity at the global level has been increasing since FAO first started collecting Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) data in 2014, it added.

In 2020, the year the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the globe, it rose nearly as much as in the previous five years combined, said the report.

It said that new estimates for 2021 suggest that the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity has remained relatively unchanged compared with 2020, whereas severe food insecurity has increased, providing further evidence of a deteriorating situation mainly for those already facing serious hardships.

In 2021, an estimated 29.3 percent of the global population – 2.3 billion people – were moderately or severely food insecure, meaning they did not have access to adequate food.

Although the number remained relatively stable between 2020 and 2021, more than 350 million more people were affected by moderate or severe food insecurity in 2021 compared to 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded.

The report said of those people affected by moderate or severe food insecurity, close to 40 percent of them were facing food insecurity at severe levels, indicating they had run out of food and, at worst, gone a day without eating.

The global prevalence of severe food insecurity rose from 9.3 percent to 10.9 percent between 2019 and 2020, and to 11.7 percent in 2021. An estimated 923.7 million people faced severe food insecurity in 2021 – 73.6 million more than in 2020 and 207 million more people compared to 2019.

While levels of moderate or severe food insecurity remained stable at the global level, differing trends were seen at the regional level, said the report.

The largest increase in moderate or severe food insecurity between 2020 and 2021 was seen in Africa, which also has the highest prevalence at both levels of severity. Moderate or severe food insecurity increased 1.9 percentage points in one year to 57.9 percent, and severe food insecurity increased 1 percentage point, affecting nearly one in four people in the region in 2021.

An estimated 322 million Africans were facing severe food insecurity – 21.5 million more than in 2020 and 58 million more than in 2019 prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, said the report.

“Globally, more than one-third of the total number of people facing severe food insecurity in 2021 live in Africa.”

Food security also continued to worsen in Latin America and the Caribbean, although the deterioration has slowed following a relatively sharp rise in food insecurity in 2020, said the report.

It said in 2021, 40.6 percent of the population was facing moderate or severe food insecurity – an increase of 1.1 percentage points since 2020, which is within the margins of error. Severe food insecurity rose 1.4 percentage points to reach 14.2 percent – an increase of nearly 10 million more people in one year and almost 30 million more when compared with 2019.

The prevalence of severe food insecurity in the region has nearly doubled since FIES data were first collected in 2014, said the report.

The food insecurity situation was comparatively better in Asia, where the combined prevalence of moderate and severe food insecurity decreased slightly from 25.8 percent in 2020 to 24.6 percent in 2021, it added.

“Nevertheless, given the size of its population, Asia accounts for half the people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in the world – more than 1.15 billion. Furthermore, the prevalence of severe food insecurity actually increased to 10.5 percent.”

An estimated 37.5 million more people faced severe food insecurity in Asia in 2021 compared to 2020 – a larger increase in terms of absolute numbers than in Africa. When compared with 2019, 112.3 million more people were facing food insecurity at severe levels in 2021.

The report said Eastern Asia is the sub-region with the lowest levels of food insecurity and also appears to be one of the few sub-regions in the world where progress was made and food insecurity fell below pre-pandemic levels in 2021.

The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity decreased 1.6 percentage points to 6.2 percent, and severe food insecurity fell by half to 1.0 percent, levels similar to many sub-regions of Northern America and Europe.

In Northern America and Europe, the region where the lowest rates of food insecurity are found, the prevalence of severe food insecurity increased for the second consecutive year since the beginning of FIES data collection in 2014.

The report said in 2021, 8.0 percent of the population of Northern America and Europe was moderately or severely food insecure, and 1.5 percent was severely food insecure. The rates were slightly higher in Oceania – 13.0 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively.

Of a total of 2.3 billion suffering from food insecurity in 2021, half (1.15 billion) are in Asia; more than one-third (795 million) are in Africa; about 12 percent (268 million) live in Latin America and the Caribbean; and nearly 4 percent (89 million) are in Northern America and Europe.

LMICs, which compose the largest portion of the global population, account for more than half the food-insecure people in the world. However, low-income countries suffer a much higher burden, said the report.

With a combined population of only 683 million, LICs were home to 437 million food-insecure people in 2021 – 64 percent of the population of that country income group. A large proportion of these – 44 percent, or 193 million – were severely food insecure.

In contrast, the report said, HICs and territories were home to 93 million food-insecure individuals (less than 8 percent of the population of that country income group), and a smaller proportion of food-insecure people in those countries were severely food insecure – 25 percent of the total, or 23 million.

The report also said while global consumer food prices only began to increase in May 2020, by the end of the year they were higher than in any month in the previous six years.

This sharp increase in the second half of 2020 translated directly into an increased average cost of a healthy diet in 2020 for all regions and almost all sub-regions in the world, it added.

At the global level, the average cost of a healthy diet in 2020 was USD 3.54 per person per day, which represents a 3.3 percent increase from 2019, and a 6.7 percent increase from 2017.

The report said between 2019 and 2020, Asia had the highest increase in the cost of a healthy diet at 4.0 percent, followed by Oceania at 3.6 percent. In Asia, this surge pushed up the average cost of a healthy diet to USD 3.72 per person per day.

Latin America and the Caribbean had the third highest increase (3.4 percent) in the average cost of a healthy diet in the same period, reporting the highest cost in 2020 (USD 3.89 per person per day).

Northern America and Europe saw a cost increase of 3.2 percent and an average cost of a healthy diet at USD 3.19 per person per day.

The report said Africa had the lowest increase in the cost of a healthy diet between 2019 and 2020 (2.5 percent), reaching an average cost of USD 3.46 per person per day in 2020.

It said as a result of the single-year increases in 2020, almost 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet, an increase of 112 million more people than in 2019

 - Third World Network