More Than 700 Million People Faced Hunger in 2023

More than 700 million people will face hunger in 2023, one in every 11 inhabitants in the world and one in five in Africa, according to a UN report released today.

"It is estimated that between 713 and 757 million people, which corresponds to 8.9% and 9.4% of the global population, respectively, would have faced hunger in 2023. Considering the intermediate range (733 million), it would be around 152 million more people than in 2019", according to the report on the "State of Food and Nutrition Security in the World (SOFI) 2024", by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

After having increased sharply from 2019 to 2021 (during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic), global hunger, measured by the prevalence of malnutrition, persisted at almost the same level for three consecutive years, affecting 9.1% of the population in 2023, compared to 7.5% in 2019.

According to the document, which has as its theme "Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition", the world is still far from achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2, which are the UN proposals to eradicate hunger by 2030.

"While hunger continues to rise in Africa, it has remained relatively unchanged in Asia, and has made notable progress in Latin America. Proportionately, Africa continues to be the region with the largest number of people facing hunger -- 20 .4%, compared to 8.1% in Asia, 6.2% in Latin America and the Caribbean and 7.3% in Oceania", said the study.

However, Asia is still home to more than half of the world's hungry population, according to FAO.

"It is predicted that 582 million people will be chronically undernourished by the end of the decade. By 2030, Africa will replace Asia as the region responsible for more than half of the world's undernourished people", indicated the document.

Progress in ensuring regular access to adequate food for all has also stagnated and the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity has remained unchanged for three consecutive years globally, although it is important to highlight that progress has been made in Latin America, according to the FAO.

In 2023, according to the study, it is estimated that 28.9% of the world's population -- 2.33 billion people -- suffered from moderate or severe food insecurity.

Focusing on affordable access to nutritious food, the updated and improved estimates show that more than a third of the world's population -- about 2.8 billion -- could not afford a healthy diet in 2022. Inequalities are evident, with low-income countries having the highest percentage of the population that cannot afford a healthy diet (71.5%) compared to lower-middle-income nations (52.6%), upper-middle-income countries (21. 5%) and high-income states (6.3%).

The lack of improvements in food security and uneven progress in economic access to healthy foods and diets cast a shadow over the possibility of achieving UN SDG 2.

For FAO, it is necessary to accelerate the transformation of agri-food systems to strengthen their resilience, as the main factor, and address inequalities to ensure that healthy diets are accessible and available to everyone.

"There has been some progress towards the goal of ending all forms of malnutrition, with improvements in the global prevalence of stunting and wasting among children under five, and in exclusive breastfeeding among children under six months ", stated the UN in the document.

According to SOFI 2024, dual actions are still needed to simultaneously combat malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity, taking advantage of the common factors shared by all forms of malnutrition.

The SDG target to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition requires increased and more effective financing, however, there is currently no clear financing framework to achieve these goals. Therefore, according to the report, both a common definition and a mapping of financing for food and nutrition security are urgently needed, as current efforts lack adequate attention and clarity.

"Donors and other international actors need to increase their risk tolerance and be more involved in risk reduction activities, while governments must fill gaps not addressed by private actors through public investments, reducing corruption and tax evasion taxes, increasing spending on food and nutritional security with a reorientation of political support", indicated SOFI 2024.

FAO launches this report - at an event on the sidelines of the G20 Global Alliance against Hunger, in Rio de Janeiro - in partnership with other