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While the absence of a significant increase in global hunger between 2021 and 2022 may seem like a positive development, there are many negative trends revealed in the United Nations’ annual report on global food security. The report, titled “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023,” released last week by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), estimated that between 691 million and 783 million people experienced hunger last year. The midrange estimate of 735 million represents an increase of 122 million compared to 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, the report found that nearly 30 percent of the world’s population, approximately 2.4 billion people, lacked access to adequate food in 2022. Furthermore, 3.1 billion people were unable to afford a healthy diet. Despite significant efforts to alleviate poverty, the report projected that by the end of the decade, approximately 600 million people will still suffer from chronic undernourishment, undermining the U.N.’s goal of eliminating hunger by 2030.
Measuring hunger is a complex task. The FAO defines chronic hunger as the long-term inability to meet minimum dietary energy requirements and uses this definition to represent the entire population. The conclusions of this year’s report highlight a world where hundreds of millions of people face increasingly precarious circumstances due to the impacts of climate change and regional economic challenges.
“The recovery from the global pandemic has been uneven, and the war in Ukraine has affected access to nutritious food and healthy diets,” said Qu Dongyu, director general of the FAO. “This is the ‘new normal,’ where climate change, conflict, and economic instability are pushing those on the margins even further away from safety.”
The consequences of rising hunger among impoverished communities are severe. According to the U.N. children’s agency, in 2022, 148 million children under the age of 5 experienced stunted growth due to inadequate diets, while another 45 million children suffered from wasting, which means they became severely undernourished within a short period, leading to a thin appearance relative to their height.
The report highlighted relative success stories in Asia and Latin America, where hunger rates decreased as economies recovered from the pandemic. However, Africa and West Asia, including the Middle East and Afghanistan, faced more challenging circumstances due to a combination of conflict, extreme weather events, and soaring food prices. These events exposed the vulnerability of local economies and placed strain on humanitarian efforts due to a lack of funding.
The war in Ukraine has also had a significant impact on global food supply chains. “Today, we’re missing around 11 million tons of wheat exports that traditionally have gone to the poorest countries,” said Isobel Coleman, deputy director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). “That’s just a huge impact on the world and on the global supply chain for food.”
Somalia serves as an example of the dire consequences of such crises. Last year, international organizations warned of an approaching famine due to an extended drought. Although humanitarian support prevented a more catastrophic outcome, the United Nations estimates that close to 7 million Somalis will still face severe food insecurity this year.
“Somalia was brought back from the brink of famine in 2022 because the international community heeded the warning signs and responded swiftly,” said Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Program (WFP). “But now we risk losing the progress we have made since those dark days last year.”
The issue of climate change exacerbates the challenges faced by the global agriculture sector, with more frequent extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy rains, and flooding impacting crop yields and contributing to uncertainty in commodity markets. Alvaro Lario, president of the International Fund for Agriculture Development, noted that the new hunger figures effectively take the world back to where it was in 2015 when the U.N. adopted its sustainable development goals. He emphasized the challenges faced by African countries with public debt, which contributes to inflation and food crises.
“We are dealing with countries that don’t have the fiscal capacity or space,” Lario said. “The development conversation now revolves around not forcing these countries to choose between health and food security or infrastructure and feeding their population.”
At the same time, U.N. officials express concern that the growing need to provide for vulnerable communities will not be met due to a lack of resources from the struggling humanitarian donor complex in the West. The war in Ukraine has diverted aid from European governments and narrowed the pool of donors for crises in other regions. WFP Chief Economist Arif Husain warned of potential funding cuts, stating that the agency has already received a third less funding compared to the previous year.
“I am concerned that we will face significant funding reductions moving forward,” he said.
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