After steep increases due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the global hunger total of as many as 783 million people is relatively stable and the goal of ending hunger by the end of the decade will be increasingly difficult to reach, said the annual United Nations report on world hunger. “Indeed, it is projected that almost 600 million people will still be facing hunger in 2030,” said the leaders of five UN agencies in the foreword to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.
“No doubt, achieving the Sustainable Development Goal target of Zero Hunger by 2030 poses a daunting challenge,” wrote the leaders. “The major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition are our ‘new normal,’ and we have no option but to redouble our efforts to transform agrifood systems and leverage them towards reaching the … targets.” FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said climate change, armed conflict, and economic instability were “pushing those on the margins even further from safety.”
A year ago, the hunger report estimated that 9.8 percent of the world population, or as many as 828 million people, were affected by hunger in 2021, up from 9.3 percent in 2020 and 8 percent in 2019, before Covid-19 spread across the globe. The current hunger rate of 9.2 percent represents the midrange of estimates that between 691 million and 783 million people experienced hunger.
While overall global hunger numbers held steady, with progress in Asia and Latin America, hunger was on the rise in western Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa, where one in five people were affected, double the global average.
“There are rays of hope,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “But overall, we need an intense and immediate effort to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals.”
The report said that roughly 3 in 10 people in the world did not have constant access to food, meaning they faced varying levels of food insecurity. About 900 million of them suffered severe food insecurity, defined as running out of food, experiencing hunger, or going without food for a day or more at some point during the year.
The State of Food Security report is available here.