World set back by 15 years in fight against hunger: report

Hunger. Photo courtesy - BBC News

Penang, 25 Jul (Kanaga Raja) — Between 713 and 757 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one out of 11 people in the world, and one out of every five in Africa, according to a new report by five United Nations specialized agencies.

The annual report on the “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World”, released on 24 July, warned that the world is falling significantly short of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, or “Zero Hunger”, by 2030.

The report found that the world has been set back 15 years, with levels of undernourishment comparable to those in 2008-2009.

It also said despite some progress in specific areas such as stunting and exclusive breastfeeding, an alarming number of people continue to face food insecurity and malnutrition as global hunger levels have plateaued for three consecutive years, with between 713 and 757 million people undernourished in 2023 – approximately 152 million more than in 2019 when considering the mid-range (733 million).

The report said regional trends vary significantly, with hunger still on the rise in Africa, but remaining relatively unchanged in Asia, while notable progress has been made in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

It warned that if current trends continue, about 582 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030, half of them in Africa.

The report was 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).

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said: “Transforming agrifood systems is more critical than ever as we face the urgency of achieving the SDGs within six short years. FAO remains committed to supporting countries in their efforts to eradicate hunger and ensure food security for all. We will work together with all partners and with all approaches, including the G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, to accelerate the needed change. Together, we must innovate and collaborate to build more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agrifood systems that can better withstand future challenges for a better world.”

IFAD President Alvaro Lario said that: “The fastest route out of hunger and poverty is proven to be through investments in agriculture in rural areas. But the global and financial landscape has become far more complex since the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015. Ending hunger and malnutrition demands that we invest more – and more smartly. We must bring new money into the system from the private sector and recapture the pandemic-era appetite for ambitious global financial reform that gets cheaper financing to the countries who need it most.”

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said: “Malnutrition affects a child’s survival, physical growth, and brain development. Global child stunting rates have dropped by one third, or 55 million, in the last two decades, showing that investments in maternal and child nutrition pay off. Yet globally, one in four children under the age of five suffers from undernutrition, which can lead to long-term damage. We must urgently step-up financing to end child malnutrition. The world can and must do it. It is not only a moral imperative but also a sound investment in the future.”

WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said: “A future free from hunger is possible if we can rally the resources and the political will needed to invest in proven long-term solutions. I call on G20 leaders to follow Brazil’s example and prioritize ambitious global action on hunger and poverty. We have the technologies and know-how to end food insecurity – but we urgently need the funds to invest in them at scale. WFP is ready to step up our collaboration with governments and partners to tackle the root causes of hunger, strengthen social safety nets and support sustainable development so every family can live in dignity.”

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that: “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. 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.”

GLOBAL HUNGER

In reference to SDG Indicator 2.1.1 (Prevalence of undernourishment), the report said that the assessment of global hunger in 2023, measured by the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) (SDG Indicator 2.1.1), reveals a continuing lack of progress towards the goal of “Zero Hunger”.

The report said inflationary pressures, in particular increases in the relative prices of food, continue to erode economic gains for many people’s access to food in many countries, as the world is still struggling to recover from the global pandemic, hampered by a growing number of conflicts and extreme weather events.

It said after rising sharply from 2019 to 2021, the proportion of the world population facing hunger persisted at virtually the same level for three consecutive years, with the latest estimates indicating a global PoU of 9.1 percent in 2023.

In terms of population, between about 713 and 757 million people (8.9 and 9.4 percent of the global population, respectively) were estimated to be undernourished in 2023.

Considering the mid-range estimate (733 million), about 152 million more people may have faced hunger in 2023 compared to 2019, said the report.

Africa is the region with the largest PoU – 20.4 percent, compared with 8.1 percent in Asia, 6.2 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7.3 percent in Oceania, it noted.

However, Asia is still home to the largest number: 384.5 million, or more than half of all those facing hunger in the world.

In Africa, 298.4 million people may have faced hunger in 2023, compared with 41.0 million in Latin America and the Caribbean and 3.3 million in Oceania.

While there was no change in the prevalence of hunger at the global level, the trends across and within regions varied, said the report.

The PoU for Africa increased continuously from 2015 to 2023, whereas hunger has been on the decline in Latin America and the Caribbean since 2021 and remained relatively unchanged in Asia in the same period.

In Africa, hunger has been rising steadily since 2015. More than one person out of five living in Africa may have faced hunger in 2023, said the report.

Hunger increased in most sub-regions of Africa from 2022 to 2023, with the exception of Eastern Africa and Southern Africa.

The trend in hunger in Asia mirrored that at the global level, characterized by a sharp increase from 2019 to 2021, followed by two years of virtually no change, with 8.1 percent of the population still facing hunger in 2023, it added.

In Central Asia, following an increase from 2.6 percent in 2019 to 3.2 percent in 2020, the PoU decreased slightly in subsequent years to 3.0 percent in 2023.

In South-eastern Asia, the PoU increased slowly from 5.5 percent in 2019 to 6.1 percent in 2022 and remained unchanged in 2023.

“In Southern Asia, encouraging progress was seen for two years in a row. Following a sharp rise from 2019 to 2021, the PoU decreased from 14.5 percent in 2021 to 13.9 percent in 2023 – the equivalent of 7.7 million fewer people facing hunger.”

In contrast, the situation continued to deteriorate in Western Asia, where hunger has been on the rise since 2015, reaching 12.4 percent in 2023, said the report.

It said in Latin America and the Caribbean, the two-year rise in hunger in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic mirrored the global trend, but the recovery has been considerably stronger.

After increasing from 5.6 percent in 2019 to 6.9 percent in 2021, the PoU fell for two consecutive years, reaching 6.2 percent in 2023 – a decrease equivalent to 4.3 million people in two years, driven mainly by improvements in South America.

The progress is encouraging, although the PoU is still far above pre-pandemic levels, the report noted.

At the same time, there is a notable disparity in progress at the sub-regional level, with hunger affecting a much larger proportion of the population, and rising, in the Caribbean, it said.

“The PoU in the Caribbean was more than three times that in Latin America in 2023, and it showed a marked increase from 15.4 percent in 2021 to 17.2 percent in 2023.”

This contrasts with the trend in Central America, where the PoU increased only slightly from 5.6 percent in 2019 to 5.9 percent in 2022, and then showed a marginal decline in 2023.

However, the report said that the most progress has been made in South America, where the PoU fell for two consecutive years by a total of 1.3 percentage points, down to 5.2 percent in 2023, after increasing sharply from 4.8 percent in 2019 to 6.5 percent in 2021, in the wake of the pandemic, amounting to 5.4 million fewer people facing hunger in South America in 2023 compared to 2021.

In its projection on how many people may be facing hunger in 2030, the report said that the current scenario shows that 582 million people, or 6.8 percent of the global population, will be chronically undernourished in 2030, pointing to the immense challenge of achieving SDG 2 (Zero Hunger).

This is about 130 million more undernourished people than in the “projections before COVID-19 pandemic” scenario, it added.

Practically all progress in the fight against hunger is expected to be made in Asia, with a strong recovery in the second half of the decade, where the number of undernourished is projected to fall from the current 385 million to 229 million people by 2030, nearly halving the prevalence of undernourishment (4.8 percent by 2030).

Latin America and the Caribbean will reduce chronic hunger at a slower pace, by 8 million people, and will bring the prevalence of undernourishment below 5 percent by 2030, said the report.

These two regions contrast sharply with Africa, where it is projected that 10 million more people (18 percent of the population) will be facing chronic hunger by 2030.

Without accelerated efforts and increased resource mobilization, under current prospects, the continent will only manage to stabilize the situation at the high level of hunger inherited from the last few years, said the report.

FOOD INSECURITY

On SDG Indicator 2.1.2 (Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale), the report said that new estimates show that the global prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale still remains far above the pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, with little change in four years.

Since a sharp increase in food insecurity from 2019 to 2020 during the pandemic, levels have remained virtually unchanged, it noted.

In 2023, an estimated 28.9 percent of the global population – 2.33 billion people – were moderately or severely food insecure, meaning they did not have regular access to adequate food.

While the prevalence remained virtually unchanged from 2020 to 2023, the number of people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in the world nevertheless increased by more than 65 million, as the global population grew during that period, said the report.

These estimates include 10.7 percent of the population – or more than 864 million people – who were severely food insecure, meaning they had run out of food at times during the year and, at worst, gone an entire day or more without eating, the five UN agencies noted.

The prevalence of severe food insecurity at the global level rose from 9.1 percent in 2019 to 10.6 percent in 2020 and has remained stubbornly unchanged since then, they said.

Comparing situations in the different regions of the world in 2023, the report said Africa remains the region with the largest proportion of the population facing food insecurity.

It said the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in Africa (58.0 percent) is nearly double the global average, whereas in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania, the prevalence is closer to and slightly below the global estimate – 24.8, 28.2 and 26.8 percent, respectively.

From 2022 to 2023, food insecurity at moderate or severe levels remained virtually unchanged in Africa and Asia, while it worsened in Oceania and, to a lesser extent, in Northern America and Europe.

In contrast, the report said that notable progress was made in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

In Africa, 58.0 percent of the population was moderately or severely food insecure in 2023, and 21.6 percent faced severe food insecurity, although the differences between sub-regions were notable, said the report.

Middle Africa had the highest prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity (77.7 percent, or 157 million people), making it the sub-region with the highest level in the world.

It is followed by Eastern Africa (64.5 percent,  or 313 million people) and Western Africa (61.4 percent, or 270 million people).

One-quarter of the population of Southern Africa (17.3 million people) and more than one-third of Northern Africans (89.4 million people) were affected by moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023.

Middle Africa is also the sub-region with the highest level of severe food insecurity in Africa and in the world – 38.0 percent in 2023, said the report.

In Eastern Africa, 24.2 percent of the population is severely food insecure, followed by Western Africa (18.8 percent), Northern Africa (11.9 percent) and Southern Africa (10.9 percent).

The report said that from 2022 to 2023, the proportion of the population experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity increased at least marginally in most sub-regions of Africa, especially in Southern Africa, where it increased by 2.1 percentage points.

However, it said that improvements were seen in Eastern Africa – one of the most affected sub-regions – with a 2.6 percentage-point decrease from 2022 to 2023, which is equivalent to more than 4 million fewer people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in Eastern Africa in one year.

Turning to Asia, the report said 24.8 percent of the population (1.18 billion people) were moderately or severely food insecure in 2023, and 9.8 percent (467.3 million) faced severe food insecurity.

It said the majority live in Southern Asia, where 41.1 percent of the population, or 833.4 million people, faced moderate or severe food insecurity, close to half of whom were severely food insecure (387.7 million people, or 19.1 percent of the population in that sub-region).

In Western Asia, 37.5 percent (111.9 million) were moderately or severely food insecure and 13.3 percent (39.7 million) faced severe food insecurity.

The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity was comparatively lower in Central Asia (16.6 percent, or 12.9 million people) and South-eastern Asia (17.1 percent, or 117.7 million people) and lowest in Eastern Asia (6.3 percent, equivalent to 105.2 million people).

The proportion of the population facing severe food insecurity in these sub-regions was also much lower: 3.4 percent, 2.9 percent and 1.0 percent in Central Asia, South-eastern Asia and Eastern Asia, respectively.

However, the report said trends at the sub-regional level in Asia differ. In Eastern Asia, food insecurity levels remained virtually unchanged from 2021.

In Southern Asia and South-eastern Asia, the prevalence of food insecurity at both levels of severity remained about the same from 2022 to 2023.

It said there were signs of progress in Western Asia in the same period, although the prevalence of severe food insecurity was slightly higher in 2023 compared to 2021.

Central Asia is the only sub-region that has shown consistent progress since 2021, with food insecurity at both levels of severity decreasing for two years in a row: 2.4 million fewer people faced moderate or severe food insecurity in Central Asia in 2023 compared to 2021, and more than 1 million fewer people faced severe food insecurity.

Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region that made progress from 2022 to 2023 towards achieving SDG Target 2.1, said the report.

“The regional prevalence of food insecurity in the region decreased notably for the second year in a row, from 31.4 percent in 2022 to 28.2 percent in 2023 for moderate or severe food insecurity, and from 11.0 percent to 8.7 percent for severe food insecurity.”

The report said this is equivalent to nearly 20 million fewer people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023 compared to 2022, including more than 14 million fewer people facing severe food insecurity.

However, the report noted that there are important sub-regional differences.

For instance, it said that in 2023, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the Caribbean (58.8 percent) was more than double that of Central America (28.2 percent) and South America (25.1 percent).

Changes from 2022 to 2023 were only marginal in Central America and in the Caribbean, although severe food insecurity rose marginally in the Caribbean since 2021.

In contrast, the report said encouraging progress was seen in South America. The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity fell for the second consecutive year, from 29.6 percent in 2022 to 25.1 percent in 2023 – the equivalent of 18.7 million fewer people facing moderate or severe food insecurity.

The prevalence of severe food insecurity in South America also decreased markedly, from 10.4 percent in 2022 to 7.2 percent in 2023 – the equivalent of nearly 14 million fewer people.

The report said food insecurity appears to be on the rise in Oceania. Moderate or severe food insecurity rose steadily from 23.2 percent in 2020 to 26.8 percent in 2023, with a 2.7 percentage-point increase in the last year alone.

The prevalence of severe food insecurity also increased marginally in the last year, from 9.3 percent in 2022 to 10.4 percent in 2023, said the report.

It said food insecurity worsened slightly in Northern America and Europe between 2022 and 2023, though the difference remains within statistical margins of error. The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023 was 8.2 percent in Europe and 9.8 percent in Northern America, while 2.0 percent and 1.0 percent of the populations, respectively, faced food insecurity at severe levels.

Though the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in Asia is about half that of Africa, Asia accounts for a larger share of the number of food-insecure people in the world – 1.18 billion in Asia compared with 847 million in Africa, said the report.

In 2023, half of the 2.33 billion food-insecure people in the world lived in Asia, more than one-third in Africa, about 8 percent (188 million) in Latin America and the Caribbean, and about 4 percent (98 million) in Northern America and Europe.

Severely food-insecure people account for the largest proportion of the total number of moderately or severely food insecure in Asia (about 40 percent), followed by Africa (37 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (31 percent), and Northern America and Europe (18 percent).

The report also found that just as for 2022, results for 2023 show a pattern of decreasing food insecurity with an increasing degree of urbanization at the global level.

The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity was 31.9 percent in rural areas compared with 29.9 percent in peri-urban areas and 25.5 percent in urban areas.

Globally and in all regions except Northern America and Europe, the prevalence of food insecurity, at both levels of severity, is consistently higher in rural areas than in urban areas.

The report said that Northern America and Europe, considered together for this analysis, is the only region where people living in urban areas are more food insecure than those living in rural areas.

A comparison of the food insecurity status of men and women shows that the prevalence of food insecurity has remained consistently higher among women than among men, globally and in all regions, since data first became available in 2015, said the report.

“The gender gap widened considerably at the global level and in every region except Africa between 2019 and 2021 in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, largely due to the disproportionate impact on women’s jobs and incomes and their larger burden of unpaid care-giving for out-of-school children and sick family members.”

The report said that at the global level, the gender gap in moderate or severe food insecurity jumped from a 1.4 percentage-point difference between men and women in 2019 to 3.6 percentage points in 2021, and for severe food insecurity, from a 0.6 percentage point difference to 2.3 percentage points in the same period.

The gender gap narrowed markedly in 2022 as the pandemic and its unprecedented disruptions eased, and new data indicate that it continued to grow smaller in 2023, said the report.

Globally, the percentage-point difference in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity between men and women fell to 2.3 in 2022 and narrowed further to 1.3 in 2023. For severe food insecurity, the gap narrowed to 1 percentage point in 2022 and remained about the same in 2023.

The lack of improvement in food security and the uneven progress in the economic access to healthy diets cast a shadow over the possibilities of achieving Zero Hunger in the world, six years away from the 2030 deadline, the report said.

“There is the need to accelerate the transformation of our agrifood systems with greater resilience to the major drivers, addressing inequalities to ensure that healthy diets are affordable and available to all,” it added. - Third World Network