As more go hungry and malnutrition persists, achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 in doubt, UN report warns
Rome, 13 July 2020 – More people are
going hungry, an annual study by the United Nations has found. Tens of millions
have joined the ranks of the chronically undernourished over the past five
years, and countries around the world continue to struggle with multiple forms
of malnutrition.
The latest edition of
the State of Food Security and Nutrition
in the World, published today,
estimates that almost 690 million people went hungry in 2019 – up by 10 million
from 2018, and by nearly 60 million in five years. High costs and low
affordability also mean billions cannot eat healthily or nutritiously. The
hungry are most numerous in Asia, but expanding fastest in Africa. Across the
planet, the report forecasts, the COVID-19 pandemic could tip over 130 million
more people into chronic hunger by the end of 2020. (Flare-ups of acute hunger
in the pandemic context may see this number escalate further at times.)
The State of Food
Security and Nutrition in the World is the most authoritative
global study tracking progress towards ending hunger and malnutrition. It is
produced jointly 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).
Writing in the Foreword,
the heads of the five agencies[i] warn that “five
years after the world committed to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of
malnutrition, we are still off track to achieve this objective by 2030.”
The hunger numbers explained
In this edition, critical
data updates for China and other populous countries[ii] have led to a
substantial cut in estimates of the global number of hungry people, to the
current 690 million. Nevertheless, there has been no change in the trend.
Revising the entire hunger series back to the year 2000 yields the same
conclusion: after steadily diminishing for decades, chronic hunger slowly began
to rise in 2014 and continues to do so.
Asia remains home to the
greatest number of undernourished (381 million). Africa is second (250
million), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (48 million). The global
prevalence of undernourishment – or overall percentage of hungry people – has
changed little at 8.9 percent, but the absolute numbers have been rising since
2014. This means that over the last five years, hunger has grown in step with
the global population.
This, in turn, hides great
regional disparities: in percentage terms, Africa is the hardest hit region and
becoming more so, with 19.1 percent of its people undernourished. This is more
than double the rate in Asia (8.3 percent) and in Latin America and the
Caribbean (7.4 percent). On current trends, by 2030, Africa will be home to
more than half of the world’s chronically hungry.
The pandemic’s toll
As progress in fighting
hunger stalls, the COVID-19 pandemic is intensifying the vulnerabilities and
inadequacies of global food systems – understood as all the activities and
processes affecting the production, distribution and consumption of food. While
it is too soon to assess the full impact of the lockdowns and other containment
measures, the report estimates that at a minimum, another 83 million people,
and possibly as many as 132 million, may go hungry in 2020 as a result of the
economic recession triggered by COVID-19.[iii] The setback throws
into further doubt the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero
Hunger).
Unhealthy diets, food insecurity and malnutrition
Overcoming hunger and
malnutrition in all its forms (including undernutrition, micronutrient
deficiencies, overweight and obesity) is about more than securing enough food
to survive: what people eat – and especially what children eat – must also be
nutritious. Yet a key obstacle is the high cost of nutritious foods and
the low affordability of healthy diets for vast numbers of families.
The report presents
evidence that a healthy diet costs far more than US$ 1.90/day, the
international poverty threshold. It puts the price of even the least expensive
healthy diet at five times the price of filling stomachs with starch only.
Nutrient-rich dairy, fruits, vegetables and protein-rich foods (plant and
animal-sourced) are the most expensive food groups globally.
The latest estimates are
that a staggering 3 billion people or more cannot afford a healthy diet. In sub-Saharan
Africa and southern Asia, this is the case for 57 percent of the population –
though no region, including North America and Europe, is spared. Partly as a
result, the race to end malnutrition appears compromised. According to the
report, in 2019, between a quarter and a third of children under five (191
million) were stunted or wasted – too short or too thin. Another 38 million
under-fives were overweight. Among adults, meanwhile, obesity has become a
global pandemic in its own right.
A call to action
The report argues that
once sustainability considerations are factored in, a global switch to healthy
diets would help check the backslide into hunger while delivering enormous
savings. It calculates that such a shift would allow the health costs associated
with unhealthy diets, estimated to reach US$ 1.3 trillion a year in 2030, to be
almost entirely offset; while the diet-related social cost of greenhouse gas
emissions, estimated at US$ 1.7 trillion, could be cut by up to three-quarters.[iv]
The report urges a
transformation of food systems to reduce the cost of nutritious foods and
increase the affordability of healthy diets. While the specific solutions will
differ from country to country, and even within them, the overall answers lie
with interventions along the entire food supply chain, in the food environment,
and in the political economy that shapes trade, public expenditure and
investment policies. The study calls on governments to mainstream nutrition in
their approaches to agriculture; work to cut cost-escalating factors in the
production, storage, transport, distribution and marketing of food – including
by reducing inefficiencies and food loss and waste; support local small-scale
producers to grow and sell more nutritious foods, and secure their access to
markets; prioritize children’s nutrition as the category in greatest need;
foster behaviour change through education and communication; and embed nutrition
in national social protection systems and investment strategies.
The heads of the five UN
agencies behind the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World declare
their commitment to support this momentous shift, ensuring that it unfolds “in
a sustainable way, for people and the planet.”
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