The number of people suffering from hunger in the world continues to fall

Globally, more than 122 million more people are suffering from hunger than in 2019, due to the impact of the pandemic, repeated weather events and conflicts, particularly the conflict in Ukraine, according to a new report published on Wednesday by five United Nations agencies.

According to the latest edition of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, if this trend continues, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of eradicating hunger by 2030 will not be achieved.

This report is published jointly by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

An Alarm to Revitalise the Fight Against Hunger The 2023 edition of the report reveals that between 691 million and 783 million people suffered from hunger in 2022. If we take the average, which stands at 735 million, this represents an increase of 122 million compared with 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.

Although world hunger figures have remained stable between 2021 and 2022, many regions are facing a worsening food crisis. Hunger declined in Asia and Latin America, but increased in West Asia, the Caribbean and all sub-regions of Africa in 2022. Africa remains the hardest-hit region: one person in five suffers from hunger, more than double the world average.

"There is a glimmer of hope, some regions are on track to meet part of the nutritional targets by 2030. But overall, we need to act quickly and intensively on a global scale to achieve the sustainable development goals. We need to build resilience in the face of crises and shocks that contribute to food insecurity, from conflict to climate change," explained UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a video message broadcast during the presentation of the report at UN headquarters in New York.

"The 'Zero Hunger' target of the SDGs is undoubtedly a colossal challenge to be met by 2030. Projections indicate that nearly 600 million people will still be suffering from hunger on that date. The main drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition are becoming the 'new normal'. We have no choice but to redouble our efforts to transform agri-food systems and use them as a lever to achieve the targets of MDG 2", wrote Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the WFP, Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the FAO, Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO in the preface to the report.

Beyond Hunger The food security and nutrition situation remained worrying in 2022. The report indicates that approximately 29.6 % of the world's population, or 2.4 billion people, did not have constant access to sufficient food, as measured by the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity. Of these, around 900 million were severely food insecure.

At the same time, the ability to afford healthy food has declined globally: more than 3.1 billion people (or 42 % of the world's population) could not afford to eat healthily in 2021. This represents an increase of 134 million compared to 2019.

In addition, millions of children under the age of 5 continue to suffer from malnutrition: in 2022, 148 million (22.3 %) were stunted, 45 million (6.8 %) were wasted and 37 million (5.6 %) were overweight.

On the other hand, exclusive breastfeeding has increased: currently, 48 % of infants under 6 months benefit from it, which is close to the target set for 2025. However, concerted efforts will be needed to achieve the malnutrition targets by 2030.

Urbanisation Transforms Food Systems The report also looks at increasing urbanisation, a "megatrend" that is influencing eating habits and food choices. With 7 out of 10 people projected to live in urban areas by 2050, it is essential that governments and other actors combating hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition understand the trends linked to urbanisation and take them into account in their policies.

In particular, the simple idea of a distinction between rural and urban areas is no longer sufficient to grasp the impacts of urbanisation on agri-food systems. It is necessary to adopt a more complex perspective based on a rural-urban continuum that takes into account the connectivity between people as well as the various types of links between urban and rural areas.

For the first time, this trend has been systematically studied in 11 countries. The report shows that food shopping is important not only in urban households, but also along the rural-urban continuum, including households living far from urban centres. New data also shows that, in several countries, consumption of highly processed foods is also increasing in peri-urban and rural areas.

However, spatial inequalities persist. Food insecurity affects more people in rural areas. In 2022, moderate or severe food insecurity affected 33 % of adults in rural areas, compared with 26 % in urban areas.

Malnutrition in children also shows spatial disparities: the prevalence of stunting is higher in rural areas (35.8 %) than in urban areas (22.4 %). The prevalence of wasting is also higher in rural areas (10.5 %) than in urban areas (7.7 %), while overweight is slightly higher in urban areas (5.4 %) than in rural areas (3.5 %).

To effectively promote food security and nutrition, the authors of the report recommend that public interventions, measures and investments should be guided by a thorough understanding of the complex and evolving relationships between the rural-urban continuum and agri-food systems.