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Global prevalence of undernourishment persisted at pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels for the third consecutive year, with one in 11 people facing hunger globally in 2023, the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report published on July 24 found.
Between 713 and 757 million people may have faced hunger in 2023, according to the report. This is an alarming figure and is a warning sign that the world is falling significantly short of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger, which is six years away from the 2030 deadline.
In fact, the world has been set back 15 years, with levels of undernourishment comparable to those in 2008-2009, according to the report.
The document has been prepared by five specialised agencies of the United Nations — Food and Agriculture Organization (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).
The report highlighted that access to adequate food remains elusive for billions. In 2023, around 2.33 billion people globally faced moderate or severe food insecurity. That is a number that has not changed significantly since the sharp upturn in 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among those, over 864 million people experienced severe food insecurity, going without food for an entire day or more at times.
The report was launched in the context of the G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty Task Force Ministerial Meeting in Brazil.
The percentage of the population facing hunger continued to rise in Africa (20.4 per cent), remained stable in Asia (8.1 per cent) and showed progress in Latin America (6.2 per cent). From 2022 to 2023, hunger increased in Western Asia, the Caribbean, and most African subregions.
While Africa was the region with the largest percentage of the population facing hunger, Asia was still home to the largest number: 384.5 million, or more than half of all those facing hunger in the world were Asian.
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, according to the report.
The annual analysis warned that if current trends continued, about 582 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030, half of them in Africa.
“This projection closely resembles the levels seen in 2015 when the SDGs were adopted, marking a concerning stagnation in progress,” it said.
New estimates showed that more than one-third of people in the world — about 2.8 billion — could not afford a healthy diet in 2022.
Inequalities were evident, with low-income countries having the largest percentage of the population that was unable to afford a healthy diet — 71.5 per cent.
This figure was 52.6 per cent for lower-middle-income countries, 21.5 per cent for upper-middle-income countries and 6.3 per cent for high-income countries.
Notably, the number dropped below pre-pandemic levels in Asia and in North America and Europe, while it increased substantially in Africa.
The document pointed out that a lack of economic access to healthy diets affected over a third of the global population.
Factors driving food insecurity, undernourishment, and hunger were conflict, climate variability and extremes, economic slowdowns and downturns, combined with well-established underlying factors such as lack of access to and unaffordability of healthy diets, unhealthy food environments, and high and persistent inequality.
The report highlighted that these drivers have intensified. Not only are they increasing in frequency and intensity, but are more often occurring concurrently, and in combination with the underlying factors, resulting in increasing numbers of hungry and food-insecure people.